MEFISTO wrote: ↑02 Jul 2022, 16:32
we should ask why players preferred to play this doctrine over others, not to nerf it, to make change and improve the less playable doctrines without brake the balance of the game.
We did. We asked about that while working on 5.1.8 changes. What answer did we get? "
I like it because it is the most fun." when we asked "
what makes it the most fun?" the answer was almost always "
I don't know, it just is.". When we kept asking a bit longer we eventually got "
I win with Luft most often." So we asked "
why do you think you win the most with Luft?" and the answer usually was "
It just fits me the best." which is an answer that doesn't answers anything. However, the answer was pretty easy - Luft was easy to play and had everything.
Strong infantry? Yes.
Strong defenses? Yes.
Strong tanks? Yes.
Strong arty (back in the time airstrike was pretty much offmap arty)? Yes.
The doctrine was "fun" and "easy to win with" because every unlock gave you a huge power spike. Infantry was very strong because you unlocked a squad and they didn't need any other unlocks to become efficient. Fallshirms dropped fully equipped with FG42 and a panzerschreck. They had crapload of HP, which allowed them to be dropped into FoW, sometimes directly on an AA unit, and still survive. Gebirgs had also ton of HP but also those defensive bonuses in cover (which allowed them to survive direct hits from CW bombing strike), were paradropped, could reinforce anywhere came equipped with scoped G43s and also an LMG. These guys could easily 1v2, sometimes 1v3 enemy infantry squads.
As for tanks, Hetzer was usually enough to keep most enemy armor at bay and when that failed, Panther (a.k.a. "Tiger 2.0") took care of everything else.
Defense was also easy with 88s covering tanks and flakvierlinks were good against infantry + Gebirgs with defensive bonuses.
With airstrikes you had a plan B for situations when opponent showed up with Pershings and your Panthers/88s didn't do the trick, because Henschels were click-to-kill for any tank, actually many tanks because they fired at any enemy vehicle along the flight path.
When we asked them if Luft needed some nerf, everyone said something like "absolutely not, Luft is a balanced doc". So then I asked "
what if we made Commandos start with all unlocks applied?" (because you know...Luft has it and is balanced), and "
should AB rocket plane aim at targets rather than shoot blind at the position where you click?" (a.k.a. Henschel) and "should AB get a Pershing?" (closest thing to Panther), "
should RAF get 17pounder that rotates 360° and auto targets stuff?" (a.k.a. 88s). The answer was pretty much always something like "
LOL you wanna make allies OP, right?".
So we got to a point where Luft players seemed to think that giving Allies mirrored Luft abilities would turn Allies OP but the same abilities on Luft side were "balanced". So when we worked on the doc reworks we could either put all docs on the level of Luft - which would make every doc as universal as Luft and Luft would then no longer feel strong and people would complain that "Luft is now weak". Or we could put Luft to the level of other docs and then Luft players would complain that "Luft is too weak".
We went with the other option. So Fallsh and Gebirgs start weaker and get stronger with more unlocks - just like AB and RAF. They start with weaker weapons and need to upgrade to stronger stuff - just like AB and RAF. Airstrikes are still strong but Henschels no longer shoot at everything along the flightpath. They still keep their defensive options, they still have their Panther - even if Panthers in general got a nerf but their frontal armor and gun are still as strong as they've always been. They also got the command squad with aura, so with unlocks and the aura they are stronger than before. It just takes longer to get to that point - just like for other docs.
So, we put Luft down from its very above average position to be more in line with other docs. Do we really need to make changes to push it above the line again? Will it be fair to other docs? In this case I don't wonder why idliketoplaybetter asks for counterbalance changes because that would keep Luft in line (or at least closer to the line) rather than push it above the line.