Elegant Balances

Hello I am Lord Panda and have been playing Dogs of War for a while. I have played tabletop games for 5 years including Warhammer, Warmachine and Malifaux.
Balances are complicated. Focusing on one unit can have unwanted repercussions. This post is to suggest brainstorming of ideas that would shift the meta towards more interesting strategies and allow players to have more fun. Here are a few of my thoughts:
1. Ways to make the game less Elite vs Elite.
* Strategic surrounds takes more skills and is more rewarding. Current problems is certain elite units like PoB and Skrull Warrior can destroy basic infantry lines too easily.
* Offensive stance can ignore hard-boiled. This punishes PoB and Skrull Warriors for reckless aggression without making those units obsolete.
*Skeleton warriors are the only viable basic infantry that can be up to par with elites due to ferocious and cost wise.
*Footman cost more than Skeleton warrior but are not more effective against elites due to low damage and pursuit movements, with no synergy between its traits and abilities. Suggestions: Give the Footman fierce, making it synergies with its ability Taunt and prevent pursuit of movement. This is an appropriate buff as it plays with the defensive nature of of the Lion army. The fierce trait would make the Footman feel heroic and more effective at blocking charge lanes among other things.
* Fangs need a slight point reductions (5 points) because PoB and Grave Guardian are more cost effective. With the change, its easier to compare two Fangs to a Grave Guardian or three Fangs to a Predator of Blood lv5. This would give the Wolfen players the option to field more than five units in lower points games and perform tactical surrounds. Another option to increase the point cost of Grave Guardians and/or Predator of Blood, this is to lessen the discrepancies between the elite and basic infantry.
2. Ways to Improve Draws.
* Right now, draws favor the faster army despite how big of an advantage the slower army has. Here is a suggestion. Introduce a new battle order that increases accuracy (+2) and lower damage (1) which reduces movement by 1 and prevents sprint. This incentivize players to run basic infantry units which can tie up potential "runners" and is also a way to prevent charges. This still allow people to go for draws in unfavorable match ups with planning rather than a straight draw due to speed. For example, you can run a skeleton warrior up to a wolfen crossbowman preemptively to slow his movements then finish off his predator of blood with the rest of your army. The attack would still have to hit, so you can't rely on hitting a defensive stance grave guardian or knight of the lion with a skeleton warrior.
3. How to make more fun map Designs.
* There is something wrong with Big rocks. Archers can't be effective in maps with big rocks against high mobility units. Most games archers would get one or two shots off before being engaged or killed. This makes using archers not very fun. Suggestions: Elevated grounds allow archers to shoot over big rocks and adds a strategic point to contest between players. It promotes more aggressive plays. If this is technically difficult for the developers, another suggestion is to allow archers to shoot over big rocks but at a large damage penalty. This is because doing less damage consistently is more fun than doing full damage inconsistently. (The damage should be the same on average) This may be a problem with ferocious, but skeleton bowmen still need to hit and do not have divine favor or favorable auspices.
4. Make Worg More Fun
* Make Fielding Worg allow for +1 on Battle Orders. This makes him feel like a real leader and encourage the use of cheap infantry units with a commander leading them to battle, for around the 400 point bracket. This synergies well with the suggested change on offensive stance so basic infantry can more effectively deal with legendary units.

What are your thoughts? Try to make suggestion on broad game concepts rather than one individual units.

i agree with the map changes. Elevation is key in any battle (D&D and xcom are games which come to mind) and would be a really fun and interesting twist to add to the game. I also think there should be a wider variety of maps.

1 - elites are pretty much designed to take down basic troopers while suffering minimal damage in return. That's their niche. They struggle against magicians (Exhausting Touch and Celestial Scourge make your Lv 5 POB sad) and, to a lesser extent, archers (archers spread out; the elite can only be in one place at once). They can be effectively swarmed, but you need 3-4 units to do it - which is about equal in AP cost.
- Offensive stance ignoring HB is not what I'd call "elegant". A change might be reworking HB to make you ignore 30% of received damage rather than -3, but again, HB is supposed to be strong against basic troopers, so I'm not enthusiastic. Another option is upping the bonuses for Encirclement, but they're already substantial (bigger than a Critical Wound!).
- I've not played much with Lion Swordsmen. They seem to be very synergistic though, which would make them more difficult to use. They are fairly cheap, even leveled. They might could do with another point of TOU.
- I've found Wolfen lists with lots of Fangs to be more reliable than POB + GG or dual POB lists. Wolfen with lots of units on the table can cover a staggering amount of the battlefield and threaten everyone. There's not much that can stand up to three Bloodlust Fangs, either.
2 - Draws are too easy, especially at lower AP levels. The devs, I'm told, are aware of this. Personally I think disengages are not punishing enough (in the tabletop game, you needed to succeed at a roll to disengage; if you failed you were stuck and could not attack, and even if you succeeded, you were limited to half of your normal movement, so running away once engaged was difficult - particularly if you were wounded). Introducing new orders that limit extant mechanics and have no analogue elsewhere is not elegant.
3 - Archers are tough to use without turtling (or Harassment), but have much more utility outside of deathmatches and in higher AP battles. Maps do seem to be a bit terrain-heavy, but I'd prefer this to maps that are too open.
4 - I'd make the Worg MOV 7 and be pretty much done; maybe up his soft stats or DAM a point or two. If you're going to attach weird "leadership" modifications, every legendary should have them.

1) Elites VS Elite.

I believe that making Elites less elite should be done by making Regulars stronger, not Elites weaker. Stronger base damage by 1 or 2 so the Ripostes would be a bigger danger, bigger disadvantages to surrounded targets (-20% isntead of -15% chance to hit, for example), stuff like that.

Offensive stance ignoring defensive abilities is a bit too focused against a couple of units. I don't really like it.

2) Draws

Increasing accuracy while lowering damage would negate cover. Not a big fan of that.

3) Map design

Big rocks are good, but the "VIP" mode map sucks because it has too many walls that block line of sight, makign archers useless in it. Cover is important for gameplay.

The VIP's are pretty weak and would go down very easily to archers if exposed. I wouldn't mind opening that map up a little, but VIP's need more Dodge (or perhaps more movement or Vivacity).

1) Elite vs Elite
Agree Elites are much to strong comparing to basic units (fighter + archer), especially at low AP.
Serdak said they are designed to take down basic troopers but can effectively be swarmed with 3-4 units which is about equal cost. I totally disagree with this, but should this point becomes true then we would have a more balanced game.
The key point is that at low AP (lvl 2 elite), basic troopers just dont have a chance (they are to costly at lvl 1 and have no chance to match a lvl 2 elite even at 2 or 3 vs 1 (which is the real AP ratio and not 3-4 as Serdak said) and at lvl 3 they are better but you can only take 2 vs an elite, and 1 elite lvl 2 winns vs 2 basic troopers lvl 3 easily. Serdak said they struggle vs magicians, again it's wrong. Except may be the kotl which is designed to be a tank, the other elites just kill a magician in one attack with offensive stance, and the magician cost even more than the low AP design elites (lvl 2), so he will not have enough cannonfooder to protect him in low AP games, and the elite will just wait for the right moment in higher AP games (no point to charge with your elite vs a protected magician, first remove canonfooder with archers and then charge).

To conclude this part, i think you should weaken the elites at lower levels (especially lvl 1 and 2) to make them more interesting to play at higher levels. May be with stats lowered at lvl 1 with a passive that increases stats at each lvl for a few extra AP (like magician at lvl 3 and 5). And in the same time, lower AP basic cost for the basic units (fighters and archers) and adjust the abilities cost so they stay balanced.

2) Draws
Draw is a complicated problem, also scenario dependant.
I didnt play koth (will test it soon) so cant say much about this mode except that it seems to me that draw shouldnt happen much in this scenario.
In VIP scenario it's pretty easy to get a draw because both players generally tend to camp, and i dont think the devs can change that...
The real problem is with DM, and here we have in reality 3 different cases

a) Draw due to not enough time to kill last unit
It is especially true with ram using a necromancer which have lower movement and are generally slower to engage (first have to cast minions, necro walk only 3, ...). I had for example a few games that would have end in a draw (i winn some of them when my opp resigned) just because 10 turn is to short for some ram configurations.

b) Avoiding a lost fight
Sometimes, you enter a fight and it's lost just due to the configurations facing (for example when 2 elites vs 5 basic troopers), but there is also lots of cases where one army is clearly favorite (66% winn). I will not blame the player avoiding a lost fight (i personnaly did some draw with my wolves when facing a 2 elite conf at 200 or 300ap, called it marathon, 10 turns running). I think that the proper way to solve this case is to adjust the matchmaking to avoid games with odds over 60-65% for one side due to configurations. If you say that you cant tell the odds so easily, the answer is just use the statistics, with some ponderation with player skill, it's pretty easy to determine the odds for specific configurations facing eachother (there is not so much configurations possible at low AP, and at higher AP this problem tend to be smoothed by the number of units engaged). So here i consider the real problem is in the game mechanics: possibility to have an army with a big advantage at same AP + allow these 2 configurations to face eachother with the matchmaker. This should be fixed by the devs (better unit balance + improved matchmaker).

c) Last man running.
Here having a few more turn will not always help because fast/rush factions will still have the possibility to engage later in game for a winn or draw. Winn if luck on their side, draw with last man running when not.
BUT this is not always the fast faction fault, in lots of games i saw favorite lion configurations just camping when i played wolves, i didnt play the late Rush option cause i dont like it, but i dont blame wolves players to do so when facing this kind of lions. Since i play lion i am the one engaging vs wolves and i have currently no losses with this company (and only one draw vs another lion cause it took some turns of maneuvring to create a weakness i rushed in, so i didnt had time to finish). In most of cases, the last man running is an archer because he was already not engaged and his close troops was wiped, not much more to do except running (and harass with wolves). In this case, some players resign, some not (for different reasons). The real question is should this game be considered as a draw or not? This is a difficult question because in some cases the favorite took no risk, the other player took some calculated risk and the draw when winn was not possible anymore. But when point b is solved (so both players have correct winn odds at start of game) then this case is a clear winn, because one army is defeated (dead or runners). So i think that the game should be automatically declared as a winn if the AP ratio of the surviving units (may be pondered by hit points) is clearly in favor of one side at the end of the 14 turns (details should be tweaked by devs). This will not only make the last man runner pointless but also generally improve games, generating less last moment rush because they will not make any sense anymore. The only case when we will still have a late engagement is when armies manoeuver to create weaknesses in opp team, so 2 skilled players facing eachother, which generally finish in a draw anyway

I think the "wait" option is also a huge mistake that makes elites more viable.

If a POB waits until I only have one guy left to activate, then comes in and kills a guy, continues on and attacks another, its unlikely I will have anyone to counter with left until the next turn, which they can steal initiative in anyway.

Disengagement is another thing that doesn't make hiring more units more appealing, as they are easier to single out.

"Wait" is an important option they inserted during the closed beta and I think works well: without "wait", in the range 400 AP+ but also sometimes at 300 AP, the Wolfen units were killed without mercy by Lion and Ram players, thanks to the fact they could move at least 3+ units after the Wolfen finished all their movements (usually all the archers+mages), basically killing for free at least one enemy unit each turn (and the Wolfen already starts with less units...)

1. Elite to me are ok stats-wise. If you put an elite unit into a condition of using offensive stance (and not getting punished for it) it means you are playing bad or you are about to lose. I dont feel the game is just elite vs elite. I just took down a knight of the lion with a Crossbowmen (no harassment stance) + rune guardian (buffing the crossbowmen with Ylia's wrath). Both of these units aren't elite and they more cost more or less like the Knight. Normally my wolven company (which i have 14 wins and 1 loss ) doesn't use ANY PoB or GG. If they lower fangs cost i will scream of happyness as they are the main reasons of my victories. Next patch Ferocious will make them even more stronger and elites will be even more in check. Elites are raw power...but it is one unit. Your peception of elite vs elite games is just because the easier way to beat elites is using another elite (duh) and/or you are playing too much at 200 AP.

2. I think increasing the minimum turns will improve these situations. Four turns more are enough to catch up with any lone runner. If you can't then the draw is correct because it means you lost many units as well.

3. Big rocks are NEEDED. No, really they are.

4. I like this suggestion and it might be interesting...however...these extra stances can't be used by legendaries.

on "wait": as it was said, it is necessary (it was also in the original game if i remember correct)

The "wait" option was of such importance, that even winning the initial disciplin test each turn gave you advantages, since you could hold army cards in reserve instead of playing them. There was even an ability (authority) which did the same. Because letting the opponent play and draw first, you could adapt better to the situation and were able to react on his movements and plans.

So, the "wait" option is essential.

(Back in the days there was a certain goblin army list with the sole purpose of having the enemy activate all of his units before you would even lift a finger).