A perspective of the current balance

[Linkraven]

Warno is quite an amazing game, I'm sure most of us can agree with that but there are a few things that could be improved in my humble opinion.
Disclaimer - this is my subjective opinion and I acknowledge that my suggestions may make the game balance even worse.
Most of my observations are related to 10v10.
(Wall of text incoming)

General balance for both PACT and NATO factions

1. SEAD
As it is currently, all SEAD planes seem to either be useless or severely ineffective for their price regarding their role against radar AA.
Due to the mix of good micro from the player disabling/enabling weapons on radar AA and the limited range of SEAD missles from the SEAD plane, using SEAD planes against enemy radar AA seems like waste of points compared to using artillery, especially rocket artillery against AA.

One suggestion would be to add a 10 second delay (maybe less for balance reasons) before radar AA can aim and fire after enabling weapon. I realize this has been suggested before but just repeating the point.

Another suggestion would be to vastly increase SEAD missle range (8 km+ minimum). The main role of a SEAD plane is to counter RADAR AA, if it can't do that it doesn't seem worth bringing at all.

Of course if either of the above suggestions is implemented, either the cost of the SEAD planes should go up significantly, or the radar AA availability should go up and price should go down.

This will also make air superiority fighters with radar missles more valuable to use as counter against SEAD planes which I will also mention in the next point.

2. Air superiority fighters
With the noted exception of F15s and MIG31s with F&F missles, most ASF seem to be less effective against enemy planes compared to ground based radar AA as it is significantly cheaper and it usually has similar or superior accuracy. All ASF with semi active radar missles will end up chasing enemy planes in the enemy AA net before they manage to shoot down enemy planes (mostly in 10v10 to be fair). I would also suggest increasing the speed of radar missles from ASF.
If the SEAD changes from my previous point are implemented, ASF will be more valuable to use as AA.

3. Veterancy across the board
This can be broken down in two subcategories:

3.1 Tank veterancy
I noticed that most airborne or motorized infantry divisions have their infantry start at a minimum veterancy level of trained while retaining higher availability (some even start at veteran without being special forces like French legionaires). This would naturally reflect better trained infantry from an infantry specialized division.

Tank divisions should benefit from the same veterancy buff and my suggestion is for tanks to start at a minimum veterancy of trained. The availability I propose for high end tanks would be 3 at trained and 2 at veteran. This is already implemented for the t80s in the Soviet 79th tank division. Additionally, high end command tanks should be at 2 availability at veteran and 1 on elite. In case of the T80UD and M1A1(HA) it should be 2 at trained and 1 on veteran.
This should be strictly available only for tank divisions and perhaps mechanized divisions to give them better flavor. The number of tank cards should be reduced to avoid too much spam of course. IFVs and the fire team infantry perhaps should also have a similar buff.

3.2 Plane and helicopter veterancy
Similarly to my previous point, planes and helicopters from specialized airborne divisions should start at veteran level without affecting availability to reflect the superior training and experience of pilots.
Another point on aircraft is that the veterancy bonuses don't seem to make that much of a difference which generally makes upvetting your aircraft at the cost of availability a downgrade. I would suggest significantly increasing the veterancy bonuses for both planes and helicopters regarding accuracy and evasion and especially on suppression resistance and regeneration.

4. Smaller caliber artillery and napalm
This is mostly aimed at PACT, but low caliber artillery such as mortars, grads and napalm should not be able to significantly damage high end tanks. It makes 0 sense that napalm will kill a tank faster than other tanks. Higher caliber artillery such as 155mm + or Uragan and M270 rocket arti is fine.

Factions

Currently PACT seems to have automatic air superiority due to MIG31s, radar anti air superiority due to long range self propelled radar AA such as KUB and BUK, helicopter superiority as most PACT divisions have proper gunships such as MI-24s while only American divisions have proper gunships, automatic artillery superiority due to the high number of rocket artillery in both artillery strikes and counter battery. This is my subjective opinion, but PACT generally wins most games in 10v10 due to above advantages. PACT tanks also seem to be more effective in general due to a combination of higher HP due to ERA, auto loader and ATGMs.
I acknowledge that NATO divisions may be better in 1v1.

Implementing all or part of the suggestions I made regarding general balance may resolve above issues.

NATO tanks
With the exception of the M1A1, most NATO tanks seem to be lacking in my (biased) opinion compared to PACT tanks.

One buff I had in mind for high end NATO tanks was to increase their maximum gun range
to 2350-2400 meters but also reducing their accuracy and penetration and increasing the tank price accordingly. Their HE dmg against infantry may also be reduced to compensate for the range buff and to reflect lower efectiveness of HEAT shells against infantry.

If the above is too much then I have alternative suggestions like a flat increase in accuracy to better reflect better fire control and optics, or individual changes as follows:

5. Units

5.1 Challenger tanks
They are quite terrible due to slow reload speed and penetration for their cost so perhaps only they should benefit from the range buff I mentioned earlier or a significant accuracy buff. They should also have a HE buff against infantry.

5.2 Leopard2A3
It's a bit of a glass cannon, it has a good gun but it gets 1 shotted by almost all ATGM planes in the game and severely damaged by other ATGMS.
I would suggest increasing it's front armor to 17 but increasing it's price to 250-260 points. If this is too much, the Leopard2A4 could also be removed from 5th panzer and perhaps added in another dedicated West German tank division.

5.3 LARS 2
In my opinion, this is one of the worst units in the game. It has a terrible ROF so it can easily get counter batteried and it also has very poor damage compared to grads. It needs either a significant price buff to make it worthwhile or ROF buff or damage buff. This would even the odds against PACT Grads.

5.4 Marder IFV
Due to the lower range it has compared to all other IFVs, it should have a significantly higher ROF and or suppresion.

5.5 Vasilek mortars
Add smoke rounds.

5.6 Drones
They cannot be targeted by radar AA but they can be targeted by fighter radar missles? It's a bit bizzare. Instead of fighter radar AA missles they should be targeted by radar SPAAGs like gepards, tunguska or shilkas.
Also a buff to either fuel or speed would be welcome.

5.7 Snipers
With the exception of the 50 caliber sniper team from the 9th moto division, they seem a bit squishy compared to what they bring (especially the west german sniper teams with 850m range). Perhaps buff their hp to 4 as the machine gun teams and/or further increase their stealth level.

5.8 Satchel squads.
Probably has been mentioned before but their range is very low and they can't use the satchel most of the times, perhaps replace the satchel with grenade launchers or hand grenades with less damage and suppression but more range and ammo.

5.9 EW SEAD planes
The combination of effective range and accuracy reduction is far too low in my (biased) opinion.
Suggestion: significantly increase jammer radius or increase accuracy reduction.
Bonus: Jammer helicopters should also affect radar AA albeit at a significantly reduced radius and/or accuracy reduction.

Notable mention:
UK Lynx FITOW should deal more damage against tanks with top down attack but should have a significant price increase. Normal TOW ATGM Lynx can 1 shot tanks from the side so they are generally better.

Also, yes I know, skill issue.
Thanks for the read.

[oggylv1 (Dudayev)]

Sorry, some points are valid, but most don´t. Like f. e. Marders are the most cost-efective IFV in the game. Sniper teams are great suppresion damage units and even the worst SEAD plane is very useful, because you can tank enemy AA for your bombers.

[mndbsd]

Linkraven님이 먼저 게시:

Most of my observations are related to 10v10.

[Linkraven]

oggylv1 (Dudayev)님이 먼저 게시:

Sorry, some points are valid, but most don´t. Like f. e. Marders are the most cost-efective IFV in the game. Sniper teams are great suppresion damage units and even the worst SEAD plane is very useful, because you can tank enemy AA for your bombers.

If all SEAD planes are good for is tanking AA for your bombers, wouldn't it be more effective to simply send a cheaper plane to tank the AA?

[Ahriman]

Linkraven님이 먼저 게시:

Most of my observations are related to 10v10.

A solid piece of advice for the future, start with this instead of putting it in the middle, because it matters by a rather huge margin.

10v10 is its own ecosystem for balancing, due to the multiplier factor. In a 1v1 or a 2v2 lobby, the 'problems' you have listed do not exist, and the winrates favours Nato over Pact by a notable margin. 99% of the 'broken' tactics people employ in 10v10s do not function in regular games. However, if you start balancing the game based on 10v10 results, you end up with a totally and utterly f'd up gameplay in the regular sizes, because you have to take a unit, think what will happen if it is multiplied by a factor of 10, and then scale it to be that. This is turn means it is 10x weaker in a 1v1 game. Thus why the tuning is better done from lowest to highest number of players. Less factors to consider.

A lot of these issues unique to 10v10 would be fixed the second they introduce a unique deck category solely for 10v10 which is balanced separately from the other categories.

Linkraven님이 먼저 게시:

If all SEAD planes are good for is tanking AA for your bombers, wouldn't it be more effective to simply send a cheaper plane to tank the AA?

No, because even a bad SEAD plane has better ECM, making it less likely to be struck by the AA firing at it. SEAD is there to suppress enemy AA, so even if you aren't killing it and forcing the enemy to keep it off, that already means you are getting the advantage. Radar being turned off at the click of a button is a counterplay to the SEAD being able to spot and fire at the said Radar which is also effectively a click of a button, and the main difference is that the SEAD appears pretty much instantly where you need it, while the Radar AA needs to drive all the way from spawn to come to the front.

But this is one great example of how the balance is flipped in a 10v10 lobby vs for example a 1v1 lobby. In a 10v10 lobby, a single SEAD, or even a pair, won't be able to do much. Odds are the moment it is spotted, all radar AA is turned off, and 5 ASFs rush to kill the SEAD planes. In a 1v1 lobby, SEAD appears, and now the opponent gets two options. Either they try to go for it with their ASF, potentially having to risk going into enemy AA, or just hope that the bomber that most likely is about to follow isn't going to bomb something expensive. You simply won't have the points to have everything, especially in the early game in a regular match.

One of the reasons Pact struggles in smaller games is linked to SEAD partially. Where Nato relies heavily on ASFs for their Air Superiority, Pact relies on their Radar AA. If you made it so that SEAD can snipe enemy Radar AA waaaaay beyond the range of the enemy AA, Pact will lose the air space in the first 10 minutes, at which point A-10s and ground pounders will do short work of anything Pact can muster. The reason being that Quality ASFs for Pact are far rarer than they are for Nato, and ASFs can't be countered with SEAD.

[Amormaliar]

Almost all ideas about stat changes to units (like to Chally, Leo 2, Vasilek, Drones) are impossible to implement because they’re completely unrealistic

[DasaKamov]

๋님이 먼저 게시:

Question is. will they ever fix it?

None of what the OP mentioned is broken (except, arguably, the magical tank-destroying napalm).

Everything else is just a matter of their opinion.

[Linkraven]

Ahriman님이 먼저 게시:

Linkraven님이 먼저 게시:

Most of my observations are related to 10v10.

A solid piece of advice for the future, start with this instead of putting it in the middle, because it matters by a rather huge margin.

Ok noted, edited the original post, thanks for the heads up.
Also I see your POV about SEAD particularly about 1v1.

However what do you think about the veterancy parts of my suggestions?
Or the napalm damage to heavy tanks? Is there anything at all that seems valid in your opinion?

[Ahriman]

Linkraven님이 먼저 게시:

However what do you think about the veterancy parts of my suggestions?
Or the napalm damage to heavy tanks? Is there anything at all that seems valid in your opinion?

Basing this on the Steel Division stuff basically, what we might see in the future are Divisions that are considered 'elite' for the sake of getting experienced crews without getting a hit on availability.

However I don't think it should be universal beyond Infantry. The reason being that Tanks hurt a lot more when they have a high vet than Infantry do, even if the unit is for example an ATGM team, for how easy it is to avoid. A good player can make 1 high vet tank hold off an entire platoon by itself through micro and simply having an insane accuracy.

Now, with that in mind, a feature I would prefer to see come back from Steel Division is the Commander system, where you can double up your veterancy if you have a Commander in addition to Platoon Leaders. In this case, they could have it be so that the CVs from in the Logistics Tab project a Command Net, which buffs Command Units from the other tabs to give double Vet instead, which also project it to other Command Units in a shorter range.

This way to have super high veterancy units, tanks especially, you have to invest heavily, and your opponent can try to weaken it without needing to take out the core unit.

Napalm is definitely too effective against Tanks, and should be tuned, as for artillery damage, the issue I personally have is the accuracy of artillery. Personally I still hope that when we see the new Artillery Fire Control unit get added, I do wish that alongside it we will see reduction of accuracy for non-mortars so that you can't snipe without spotting, and even then, without Laser Guided Shells, your odds of landing right on target isn't guaranteed.

[Linkraven]

Ahriman님이 먼저 게시:

Now, with that in mind, a feature I would prefer to see come back from Steel Division is the Commander system, where you can double up your veterancy if you have a Commander in addition to Platoon Leaders. In this case, they could have it be so that the CVs from in the Logistics Tab project a Command Net, which buffs Command Units from the other tabs to give double Vet instead, which also project it to other Command Units in a shorter range.
.

Interesting, I never played steel division so I was not aware of this mechanic. To be honest I would support this as it would reward proper micro so yeah that's quite a good suggestion especially since it was already used before.

[MkH^]

From an 1v1 to 4v4 player's perspective, I can't really agree with anything here.

1. Adding some delay to radar AA would render it completely useless. The point of SEAD is to suppress the enemy air defences, which it does very effectively. It can spot the radar AA before it turns off its radar, leaving it completely vulnerable to HE or cluster bombers. It also has high ECM, so it can be used to bait enemy AA to reveal itself to be then destroyed by arty.

2. The aircraft are balanced by their cost and availability. If you bring for example 3 MiG-23s, they can be very effective at defending your airspace - which is the purpose of the ASFs.

3. The veterancy curve is used to add flavor to different divisions. Giving all tank divisions the same base veterancy would take out the flavor from actual elite divisions.

4. Don't really have big issue here. Maybe one thing that could be done, is to play with the damage/morale ratio with regards to napalm's effect on tanks. It's kind of frustrating to have the tank panic and then not be able to drive out of the fire.

5. The balance is mostly fine in smaller scale games. 10v10 should get its own deck templates with the number of particular units reduced and increased point costs.