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Some objective thoughts on the rebalancing.

LitanyOfFire

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I wanted to write a post on some of my thoughts on the rebalancing and start a discussion that isn't focused on what players don't like/want to change, and focuses more on why we are seeing the changes that are being implemented. This post will contain NO suggestions for future rebalancing, praise for the rebalance, or negativity about it. I simply wish to discuss it on even terms.

Reason for Rebalance- One thing I want to start off talking about is my perceived reasons for the rebalance. I would like to approach this strictly from a perspective of design.

Before the rebalance started, there were two things that were pretty evident. One is that offence is much, much easier to improve than defense. Getting a max offence is orders of magnitude easier than a max defense, both in terms of resources and time. Maxing out the defense of an age takes an extremely long time, but improving offence is not nearly as difficult. However, defense was not very good for those who had put the time into it. Even top-tier bases with everything maxed out could still be easily run over by attackers, particularly those with strong troops cards. Taking time to upgrade defenses is therefore fairly wasteful. The result of this is sandbagging in World Wars, rushed bases (defense hardly matters, better to find easy matchups) and rich players having the capability to "buy a win" just by having the money to spend on good troop tactics, or may not even need to use them if they are not attacking the very hardest of hard bases.

The alternative is to improve defense so that it takes great skill and effort to achieve victory. This means that for a maximum defense, a maximum offense is required. Generals, troops tactics, mercenaries, etc. To me, that makes sense- if a player puts in the vast amount of time and effort necessary to improve defenses to the maximum, they should be rewarded by becoming difficult to destroy. This, essentially, creates a different kind of endgame. Max bases become very strong, and require full attacks. They are no longer a guaranteed 5 star because a player spent money. The downside of this is that it means a great deal of resources must be expended to attack such a base, most notably in troop cards.

The important point I am trying to hammer home is this- there can only be two states for an endgame base in regards to full attacks and troop cards. You can either have a scenario in which players can buy a win by spending money or you can create a system where maximum defense requires maximum offence leveraged to win. Make no mistake, there are no other real options unless overall army composition options are completely redone (not gonna happen). I believe the goal of the rebalance is to shift the state of the game from the first scenario into the second, and prevent players from "buying" victories, instead rewarding strong defenses and requiring greater skill from players to achieve victory. And again, please note that these two scenarios apply only to end-game bases and attackers.

So, let's look at how the rebalance is actually shifting the way the game is played, and not just try to figure it out based on patch notes.



Hard Counters
Note that virtually every unit in this game works on a "hard counter" system. This means that units fit very defined roles, and are extremely effective against certain units while being totally ineffective against others. (A "soft counter" game means that most units do not have niche uses, just different stats, and that every unit can decently fight any other at least OK.)

For example, an artillery piece deals very high damage to buildings and has great range, but is unable to attack defending troops at all. A rifleman is its natural counterpart, who deals little damage to structures but kills enemy troops quickly. As each attacks their effective target, they advance quickly, but are quickly defeated when out of their element.

Another example is tank units. A tank cares very little about what is attacking it, unless it is an anti-tank gun or heavy tank (essentially a mobile anti-tank gun). These units will destroy even multiple tanks very quickly, and so must be taken into consideration as they advance.

Some players struggle with this system and with keeping their army advancing correctly. In this case many units die quickly. It is also a natural inclination to find the "do-all" unit that has no weaknesses and can win in any fight, and then compose an army of entirely that unit. The closest unit to that at this time is the Heavy Tank, and HT armies are very popular for exactly this reason- they are far easier to manage in a variety of difficult situations than a mixed force. However, even this unit when spammed can be insufficient if the attacker blunders and walks into hard counters.

Because the game works on hard counters, the patch notes are also deceiving. It also means that small balance changes to attacking troops has a large impact, as attacking troops are typically in better positions to utilize their bonuses.

Attacker Advantage
Many people assume defenders innately have the advantage in war. This is incorrect. Yes, some fortified positions are definitely advantageous. But in Dominations, we have a great deal of control when we attack.

The attacker can start from any direction. They can predict the kind of resistance they will be facing, and tune their army to an optimal composition. They can call in off-map resources in the form of tactics and airplanes to create strong, precise interventions. The defender, on the other hand, must anticipate attacks from any direction, defend everywhere at once, and cannot actively react to attacking troops. The attacker has a great advantage, and skilled attackers use this asymmetry to ensure that all of their units are supporting each other and are in optimal use. This is particularly true of defenders- It is virtually never a matter of the defending army vs attacking army, but a handful of defenders at a time facing the entire might of the attacking army.

In reality, the attacker has a great many advantages. The defender must defend against every plan, the attacker chooses one and attacks with great force.

Numbers versus in-game effect
One of the biggest criticisms the rebalance has received has been the percentage increase of many units' HP values, often by up to 250%. Many are shocked when they look at the raw numbers that are being adjusted. However, these numbers and their relative increase actually mean very little for the attacker on the field.

Many of the numbers in Dominations are obscured, and troop damage output is most difficult to determine. There are many percentage upgrades that can be researched, and the DPS stat that is displayed on the unit remains mysterious and difficult to decipher. A 250% damage increase appears very large, but it's actual effect may not be nearly as impactful. An example:

Let us say in our hypothetical that a shooter unit (attacker) deals 10 damage per shot. Let us also heavy infantryman (defense) has 12 health.
-Before a rebalance, the shooter kills the heavy infantryman in 2 shots.
-The game is patched, the infantryman gains a +250% health boost. He now has 30 health.
-After the patch, the shooter kills the heavy infantryman in 3 shots, 1 more shot than previously.

Although the boost appeared to be 250%, the actual in-game benefit was 50% more survivability (3 shots versus 2). Yes, the heavy infantryman is harder to kill, but he is still going to evaporate pretty quickly.

This applies to buildings as well. Artillery may have to fire at defensive structures more often, but typically will not have to spend 2.5x as long destroying structures. Typically, it will be a difference of a single shot or two.

The buffs to defensive troops and structures undoubtedly makes bases harder to attack. But it does not make them 250% harder, as some have claimed, because of the way damage and attacking interacts. And because many hard counter units are used by attackers and the attacker has an innate positioning advantage, they are in good position to match up their army against the enemy.

Phase change analysis
Now for the meat of it. How each phase changes the game, and how units are actually different.

Phase 1
Phase one consisted of many library and university changes. Little changed in effect. Traps became notably stronger, but ambush traps (even after phase 3) are still relatively unimpressive. Land Mines did become stronger, but still fail to one-shot many tanks and are not really much scarier due to attacker healing. Phase 1 was primarily a preparation for the next phases.

Phase 2
Phase 2 consisted of changes to many units, defensive buildings, and changed the Decoy tactic significantly.

Most aircraft had theri damage doubled, as did defensive buildings. The net result of this is that fighters are generally slightly less damaging to structures than they used to be, while bombers are roughly the same. Troop health was raised in Phase 3, but fighters still wipe out troops quickly even after that change. Transports received a major buff, but few players use them so it is unclear how good they have become. For the most part, aircraft appear to be slightly more fragile due to better SAM batteries and tower/AA damage, but are largely unchanged.

Notably, wall miners, mortars and artillery pieces received a damage buff. Wall miners do seem more effective now. The buff to mortar and artillery damage was not as great as the defensive structure health buff, so they will take longer to destroy military defensive structures. However, non-military buildings in bases did not receive a health boost, so these units destroy those structures faster than they did before. The town center also notably did not receive a health increase, meaning it is easier to destroy. Overall, it means that these structure-destroyers will kill civilian buildings faster but military buildings a bit slower than before. The downside of this is that they will spend longer in combat with enemy defenses, but their quicker destruction of civilian buildings means they will make more efficient time out of combat.

The improvements to attack helicopters, MRL units, and mortars do not seem to have increased the amount those units are used by much, but it is still pretty recent from the patch. Perhaps there are compositions that could make use of them now.

Defensive mortars also received a damage reduction, which decreased their killing ability by a great deal. It is much easier for troops, particularly riflemen, to survive being attacked by them. As the premier unit that clears massed enemies, this damage reduction is quite significant. Killing troops in 3 shots instead of 2, and especially 2 shots instead of 1 makes a world of difference. It allows attackers greater time to reform their army, wait for rally to cool down, and to use tactics to rescue troops.

Redoubts/machine gun towers gained a damage increase, but are still not horribly threatening. As they were typically just shy of joke status before, they are finally a decent defensive structure.

Tower damage did increase, which makes them scarier for heavy infantry and ranged infantry, but they are still not threatening to tanks.

Interestingly, anti-tank guns did not gain increased damage, only increased health. The net effect is that it is harder for massed tanks to fight them, and they are slightly harder to take out with aircraft.

The Decoy tactic underwent significant changes. It has much reduced HP and time. The effect of this is that it is no longer effective to use Decoy as one would use sabotage, to effectively disable enemy defensive buildings. It simply does not have enough HP now. Players will have to use sabotage instead to disable clusters of defenses. Decoy remains very effective at drawing enemy troops away, however. It is still strong at making enemy defenders ignore attackers and group up in a place of the attackers choice, which can be exploited. (Especially with aircraft.)

Finally, it should be noted how these increases scale. Low level structures did not gain nearly as much from high level structures. Same with buffs to troops. The overall effect of that is that it is now easier than ever for a high-level offence to destroy low level defenses and rushed bases.

Phase 3
Phase 3 consists of a large increase to defender health, a small boost to defender damage, and notable changes to two offensive units: the bazooka and the machine gun.

The boost to defender health is most noticeable for units that are not built to fight defenders. In essence, defenders are now an even harder counter to the units that they were already good against. Units built to clear defenders, on the other hand, remain largely unchanged. Riflemen still evaporate enemy foot soldiers with ease, and although tanks die a bit slower, are still eliminated quickly. It should be noted, as well, the effect that phase 2 and 3 together has had on rifleman units- they are still effective against defending soldiers, but they do not kill buildings nearly as quickly, and large groups of defenders will require additional intervention of tactics or aircraft to eliminate. Most notably, the initial strong wave of defenders can overwhelm large amounts of riflemen unless handled well. However, with decreased mortar damage and a slightly slower rate of advance (more attacker positioning control) they are a bit easier to keep alive, so more of them can survive longer. As enemy spawn buildings are destroyed, they should be increasingly effective as the battle continues.

Heavy tanks are considerably harder, and now riflemen seem to be largely ineffective as a counter. Bazookas and aircraft still eliminate them quickly, but Heavy Tanks are now to be considered very dangerous defenders. Much has been made of attacking heavy tanks being weaker than defending heavy tanks, but it should be noted that attackers can much more easily set up situations where the defending heavy tank is outnumbered.

Bazookas received a very large buff in the form of added area damage to their attacks. Bazookas now eliminate the groups of tanks spawned from the forest and from bunkers with much greater efficiency than before. In fact, even though defending tanks have received more health, bazooka units are quicker and more effective than ever at destroying enemy tanks. In addition, this damage also often splashes other units, softening them up for any kind of follow up attack. Bazookas alone should be a consideration for players wondering about taking the leap from industrial to global age.

Machine guns also received considerable changes. Their troops space has been reduced from 4 to 3, a large difference that allows them to be more easily integrated into armies and to come in greater numbers. They can now shoot over walls, the effect of which is that they tend to stay with ranged units better and don't path into suicidal situations nearly as often. With a damage buff and area damage, they are still very good at eliminating groups of defender infantry before they can be reached, and their suppression is strong on tanks as other units attack them. They are particularly strong against the initial wave of defense and their suppression and large area of damage make a very big difference, even if only 1 or 2 are in the army composition.

Overall impression of changes at this time
My overall impression is that battles tend to move slower, as troops take more time to deal with defenders and tougher buildings. This is difficult because troops are forced to be under fire for longer, but it is also good as it gives me more opportunity to control my army and keep my angle of attack consistent. Although the pitched battle moves slower, it is much quicker to defeat civilian structures, so battle time has not been an issue.

It is much easier for advanced troops to defeat basic defenses. It is harder for advanced troops to defeat advanced defenses. For players with good compositions and attack habits, the game is harder but not terribly so. Players with poor strategy or poor army compositions, the game is going to be considerably more difficult.

In the end I believe the designers are achieving their goal of creating a system where those who take the time to upgrade powerful defenses are rewarded, and where skill in strategy and tactics are rewarded. The result of this will be that players who do not upgrade defenses will be crushed, players who do not take the time to hone attack strategy will be crushed, and players who are attacking end-game bases will be required to go all-out in order to achieve victory. Army composition is also increasingly important, as specific unit counters have become stronger. Players would be wise to examine units and find places for more niche units in their roster to achieve victory, instead of relying on compositions of 2 or 3.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I welcome thoughts on the changing strategic requirements of the game.
 
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Festivus

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Good grief. Obvious Nexon employee.

Is really the thought process that went into this? If so, it explains a lot, actually.

Nary a word on the fact that you'll have to spend more real $$ in order to be competitive now? Sorta an important aspect of the changes, I think.

Not important to me anymore, now. I'm just a farmer, at least until I eventually completely lose interest and just don't log back in.

But for those who are looking for TL;DR version of your verbose litany of excuses and rationalizations: It's just no fun anymore.
 

LitanyOfFire

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It's pretty offensive to me that you'd call me a shill when I'm just an idiot who likes to type too much.

I intentionally did not say whether I thought the rebalance was a good or bad thing. I just want to talk about the effect it has had on army composition and attack strategy. but maybe the negativity in this forum is too strong to talk about changes to the game without descending into cynicism and screaming about cash grabs.
 

qi1ln

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Is there different effects on MP Battle and War?
I think for MP Battle, which goal are not only winning, but collecting resources within shortest amount of time will be the problem.
Not all troop tactics, wonder tactics or merchenaries can be used every battle with their current limit or resources needed.
​​Current tactics long training time will also hinder.
 

Seraph

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Like Festivus said, having to spend real money to be viable sucks. You can't speak "objectively" on this topic while you ignore that fact. Yes I understand wanting to make things harder because before attacking was too easy but leaving in and in many cases buffing troop cards makes it borderline mandatory. What I'd like to see, which obviously won't happen, is for them to remove troop cards as a whole. Then we'll see how these "balance" patches really are.

Troop tactics are the single worse thing to happen to the game. It makes it pay to win. I wrote a whole list of things to add variety to attacks. Right now multiplayer is absurdly difficult especially with people buying pay to win artifacts like the last legendary one that came out. It's not "negativity" it justified complaints about a game that people have put years of their lives in to and countless hard earned dollars.

In one of the following updates they NEED to lower air troop / tactic train time if they want people to play because right now... fighting at high trophy levels is not worth it and you need tactics to even win most battles. It's a sad devolution of the game. I'm okay if they make defense super strong and you need to make war level attacks to win but if they are going to do that then train times need to be lowered to that of what they are when you're using a training blessing too so you can rapidly attack with training blessing. Of course that's not going to happen though because skipping wait times is potential money.
 

Muschristian

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I personally struggled with high end Atomics before the rebalance and as for a well endowed Cold War base, 2-3 stars perhaps. I went Cold War and got a fair bit of Cold War attack kit to reduce my Event Army expenditure.

Now I'm struggling to do a maxed Global Base/Mid Atomic...

The rebalancing wasnt necessary, you stated in your original post how much easier it is to do offence over defence.

Most people choose Attack Coalitions over Defence Coalitions in war, most people are way ahead in each age of attack over defence, there is still another defensive buff to come at around lvl12 Alliance Perk.

Nexon BHG have increased defences before the majority even have the proper full defences. Its a complete lack of understanding of their own game which is the issue and the blantancy of trying to force people to spend money thats the real issue.

Thats how I view it.... and I wouldnt even care if we had an 0SH 0TT war search checkbox, because then people will be on a level playing field rather than money bags and cheaters vs Joe Blogs.

Mus
British Lions!
British Lions!!
 

Manifesto

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Actually LitanyOfFire , everything you said is logical and common sense for this type of game, and you've put it very succinctly. I agree with the end game strategy. If you look back at some of my posts I've been critical of people who complain that high end or end game bases are hard to beat. My argument has always been that they should be hard to beat. I have a high level base, I've consciously invested time in upgrading my defenses to CW age and l don't want people to take my stuff. What's wrong with that?
So here's my point: you only need to look at my base or my defense logs to see that my lvl 250 base has always been very hard to beat, as I'm sure others are too. But guess what:
We managed to achieve strong bases without this ''rebalance​​​​​​'' !
Your commentary is ideally aimed at people who want nothing to be taken from their base, ever, but that's closed minded thinking. I can make up in one attack what l lose in 1-3 defends. So this whole concept of making my end game base unbeatable is pointless, unecessary and poor business practice, if that's Nexon's end game.
This type of invincibility is an illusion and no incentive for the majority to play this type of game. My base can, sometimes, be 4-5 starred with absolutely everything thrown at it and I'm OK with that. There has to be an incentive in there for people to try, at least in mp.
lf they introduced this ''rebalance'' for wars only while at the same time perhaps increasing rewards in mp, l doubt there would be this backlash.

ps: great OP. Nice breakdown, for new players, of how units interact and how to strategize your gameplay. :D
 
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LitanyOfFire

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Thanks!

CW age is one area I just can't comment on, because I'm not there. I do think the balancing is different for max vs max players. It is also interesting to see that players at that age already think it's hard to 5 star their bases.

Given that you have a max age base, would you mind talking about the difficulties you see at the top age with the re-balance? I am very curious why a max cold war vs max cold war is more difficult than a max global vs max global, which is what I have experience with and does not seem horribly difficult.
 

LitanyOfFire

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I am global and have a bit of trouble against max global, and mid-range atomic, but find them reasonable to handle. I am curious what part of the attacks are causing you the most trouble? (Defender, certain defenses, etc.)
 

LitanyOfFire

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I agree that training times, particularly for aircraft, are quite long. Tactics are irritatingly long as well. We would all like it if they were shortened.

Troops tactics, like it or not, are here to stay. Honestly, I just don't see any way they could even be removed. Personally, they don't bug me that much. Do I wish they were better balanced against each other? Of course. But I've got a lot of them, and if they become truly essential Nexon could potentially add more way to get them into the game.

High medals is an interesting place to be right now, and I have been wondering about the rewards for being there. Especially with adding museum bonuses and now speed ups, it's a cluttered place for 1x victory chest and 1x league boat daily. I wonder if increasing rewards even further would help ease the pain?
 

Blood

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I’m sorry but as a global you are nothing more then a noob. The changes barely affect you. I have played this game since before they even had world wars. I ground my way to lv 230 with max walls. I didn’t buy my way to the top I raided and fought my way there. These changes are horrible. If they had made intelligent changes we would not be complaining. If there were to many 5 stars in ww then nerf the offense coalitions and ban the cheaters. If not enough troop combinations were being used nerf the silo(dumb from the beginning) and boost the unused troops by 20%-30% hp and dmg. Problem solved. Now I get that I’m a Mensa member but honestly it wasn’t that hard to figure out. I was here before the silo when diverse troop combos were the norm. They created problems to solve and the solution was buy shirt.
 

Festivus

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LitanyOfFire you mentioned you're global... You haven't been at this very long. Or put in much real money. I have. I have a lvl 251 CWA for a main, and two 200+ AA accounts, plus a global on the side. I'm no newbie. I am also a fairly decent attacker. Even post rebalance 2 I was able to 5* CWA accounts in war, but that's not the point.

It's no fun anymore, it takes too much effort just to get NTGs (which are absolutely necessary in war now), and it's just too costly. I used to just do consecutive 5* attacks in MP, can't do that anymore without using tactics. Which drastically reduces the amount of raiding that's possible. And it's necessary to drop medals now, too. I'm not interested in dropping 1000 medals every day (because I gain 1000 every day just when I sleep or work) just to raid for NTGs.

That. Is. Not. Fun.

You wanna know why there's so much negativity here because of this? Because I - and lots of people like me - have spent 3 years and thousands of dollars on a game only to have that game changed into something that IS NOT FUN ANYMORE basically overnight.

You bet your butt I'm negative. In fact negative doesn't begin to describe how I feel about it. Had you invested the same amount of time and money into it then you might understand.

But you haven't. And you don't. So spare me the lectures.
 

No Angel

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Ok so here is my thought. Short and heavy.

Nothing wrong maxing our offense. Nothing wrong maxing our defense. Definitely nothing wrong maxing both!
But forcing EVERYONE to go more defensive or offensive is not the idealism of any strategy games.
Everyone has their attacking style.

​​​​​​And bottom line, why should Troop cards get ''rebalanced'' to get stronger?! Definitely nothing to do with the rebalance itself. It's just a bait for whales (and small fish too) to keep using/purchasing them 😉
 

Alexey

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This long and thoughtful starting post was interesting, but I must say that it contains a lot of analysis mistakes. Probably that’s because the heaviest impact of rebalance hit atomic and cwa bases, and the topic starter is in global. My overall conclusion about the rebalance: the game is interesting to play at earlier ages but turns into pay-to-play starting from atomic.
 

Manifesto

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LitanyOfFire , don't worry about people saying you don't know what you're talking about. There's a lot of emotion in the forum right now. :D
Anyway, the reason the changes don't seem that bad to you is because they're not. If you're high Atomic taking on a high Atomic, the game is still very much playable, however more challenging than before. High Atomic taking on a high CW base, forget it. An Atomic might get 1-2 stars against a CW but is it worth it? If all you're after is medals then yes. If you want rss then probably not, if their rss are protected. (Even before the silo)
My Global Greeks are still able to beat same level players but it's noticeably more 'challenging.
My CW Brits can still take down a high CW base but quite a few times I've had to use more tactics, more dock troops, maybe a general or two even my Mercs. I like saving my Mercs. :D
Unless l do something really stupid I've always been able to 4-5 star CW bases on a par with me. There's almost always significant troop loss, but thats expected. The wins aren't easy and l wouldn't expect them to be.
The problem is now they're more 'work' than play and l have to work more intensely at something that's supposed to be fun. Maybe it's all in my head? ;)
The reason for the increase in difficulty from ﹰGlobal/Atomic to CW? Increases to troop stats when you age up, plus everything else increases at a greater rate: barracks give you an additional bonus to the general 'age' increase, coalitions are better, mines/traps/etc are better. CW is an exponential jump in power. The same goes for buildings. Then there's CW library boosts. It's a different ball game than where you are.
If l want to really challenge myself I'll stay at 1800+ medals and do 2-3 attacks a night. If l want to have fun or go on an oil raid l hang around 800 medals.
I'm currently playing at low medals trying different troop combos, despite my criticism of these changes I'm looking to adapt to them.
Realistically, everyone complaining still has the luxury of attacking lower ages, despite all their 'grapes'. :D
In that respect, they're still able to attack as they have been, albeit a bit more challenging. If they're just griping for the sake of griping l say ''boo hoo, go and play something like candy crush''.
As you've discovered, at your level things are not as bad as people are saying.
The real problem comes when attacking an age up. I imagine CW bases are impossible to star now? And that's too bad because an age up should be a challenge but there seems much less incentive to do so now.
People get 1-2 stars from me only because my TC is exposed. And even with my rss exposed those players hardly have time to take my rss because my troops are already overwhelming them. And l don't yet have Saladin's Hold The Gates.
All this way before the ''rebalance''.

Sorry for the long read! :D
 

Manifesto

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Really? You're not able to beat bases an age lower than you?
I imagine you still can.
 

KniferX

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I can tell a lot of effort and thought has been put in this post. I commend the poster for putting in everything and engaging in discussion about it, though I can see the undertones of downplaying the defense boosts while overblowing the offense boosts. I will point out some of the mistakes here in this analysis, so the poster could formulate a better analysis down the line as he gets more experience in the game and gets hands-on experience outside of being only Global.

Your 2 scenarios assumption is incorrect. Why can't they both apply at the same time? Doesn't full offense with EAs to take down a base also constitute as buying your victory as well? Same player attacking without EAs is not going to win. Unless you mean ''buying attacks'' as ''just attacking with EAs and getting an effortless win''. Still it doesn't have to go into ''you have to go with EAs to win'' like the current update does to stop people from buying wins i.e. the defense updates are overblown.
Also there can't be a scenario of ''even with full offense and EAs you can't bring out a full victory''? That's the current path. It's not only 2 possible scenarios.

Attacker advantage is not as good as you think.
You cannot directly control your troops on the field whatsoever after you put them down. The missile silo made sure that happens, rally is useless for anything other than speeding up your troops movement or targeting a building which is already in reach.

Thus you have to rely on attacking AI, which makes dumb decisions very often. This is gladly abused by certain defense layouts, most popular being the ones which leave purposeful gaps in walls which are filled with traps like barbed wire (which kills attackers DPS, keep that in mind with the recent defense buffs which blow defense health out of proportion) and which attacking AI loves to go through. The only hope you have is bringing a lot of wall miners (thus reducing the number of other, better troops you could have brought), crossing your fingers and hoping your DPS heavy troops don't decide to go through the trapped gaps but instead the gaps your wall miners made (you don't get to pick where either, wall miner AI makes stupid decisions on this regard as well sometimes)

Tactics and plane deployment advantages are true and this is where a skilled player differs from an unskilled player. But the above paragraph brings attackers advantage way down.

Shooters vs infantry analogy is actually incorrect.
Taking the base DPS of AA shooters, 200 (which is also damage per hit as they shoot once per second) vs the base health of AA infantry, 750. Takes 4 shots for shooters to kill an infantry. Doubling infantry's health results in shooters having to take 8 shots to kill the same infantry. Exactly double.
NOTE, I am taking equal offense vs equal defense here. Comparing AA offense vs IA or GA defense, or full offense coalitions versus no defense coalitions is not within the scope of this argument. Offense is supposed to be overpowering in that regard, you are attacking ages lower or with offense coalitions behind you with no such counter boost on the defense side! (which is what I think the devs missed when looking at the amount of 5 stars, basic stuff).

In the cases where this effect does happen, mostly with howitzers vs some of the weakest defense buildings, the effect is marginal at best. The total effect in equal battles is negligible. 2.3-2.4× more shots needed against buildings and 1.9× more shots needed against defenders is my estimate. I might be giving it more than it deserves even.

Planes don't require slightly more to destroy defense buildings. It is 25% difference outside of wars, but if you account for the fact that there is a coalition (Egyptians) which boosts the increased defense hp further, but no such coalitions that increases plane damage, this undermines the +100% dps boost. Same thing with phase 3 defenders boost and Maori coalition. Planes perform worse overall in equal offense vs defense situations in wars and MP.

Transports got better overall due to the paratroopers getting a huge buff on both damage and health, but phase 3 made fighters mandatory to counter the insane defensive HT buff (even though they are weaker at that job as above paragraph describes) so transports fall back to obscurity for attacking full defense bases.

Shooters are worthless now, having to take double the shots against all targets while bazookas got splash damage to kill infantry and gatling guns becoming much better at the job.

Mortar damage got reduced by 5%. Hardly noticeable against anything, you have overblown it quite a lot.

Wall miners, mortars and howitzers got a 30% hp boost, not dps boost, to counteract tower and redoubt damage increase and make them quite a bit more resilient against mortars including the small mortar damage nerf. You probably noticed that when attacking and thought it was a huge reduction to mortar damage instead.
So no, howitzers didn't get better at destroying economic buildings or TCs.

Stage 3 and conclusion parts of the analysis mostly consist of downplaying defense buffs and overblowing the offense buffs. Everything offense related in this section except bazookas and gatling guns (potentially) is way overblown. And it is disputable if splash damage and 30% dps & health boost is nearly enough to compensate for 100% hp 30% dps boosts for defenders. Much better against infantry, against regular tanks is disputable at best, most certainly not better against heavy tanks.

I can conclude the poster is overly optimistic probably due to a lack of hands-on experience against the biggest beneficiaries of these defense buffs (AA and CWA defense bases) as he is in Global age. And some lack of knowledge and mistakes in stats analysis. The current update as it is, doesn't encourage people to use niche troops, but forces everyone who wants to have a even a chance against tough bases to go either bazooka heavy or HT only. Before you were narrowed down to a couple of compositions to get the best clear times for best dps, but now you have to run those 2 compositions to even get a chance.
 
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CptBlood

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Joined
May 16, 2018
Messages
14
A real chance to hit someone in Cold War age.. if you’re a normal player, not hacker or donator of course .. try to beat only on 2 stars... otherwise - no chances.. though sometimes yo see someone who is so weaker than you that all of your might with all buffs and stuff makes you happy on 5 stars..

so not sure players’ve been waiting such kind of rebalance...

as a result, players will be very disappointed on the game and will leave such a brilliant..

so who needs a game that consists only hackers and donators?!
 

Manifesto

Approved user
Joined
Sep 26, 2016
Messages
1,920
To be fair, you're not comparing apples with apples.
Your argument, which l agree with, is specifically about high end bases, as you said, AA and CW.
I found his analysis more generalised for a game of this type.
So his analyses wasn't necessarily wrong, just not specific enough for, as you rightly pointed out, the real beneficieries of the changes.
 
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