The new Command & Control mechanism is missing its point

[First Strike]

Conclusion first: This new Command & Control mechanism is not helping with its targeted 10vs10 audiences and should be overhauled.

Background: Eugen announced the so-called Command & Control mechanism in its latest devblog
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1611600/view/4106792101575190809?l=english

Takeaway points:

1. All units generate an upkeep cost, resulting in less income
   
2. Max Command Points is capped at 5,000
   
3. This setting will not be applied to Ranked game, but default 10vs10 lobbies.

WARNO Reality Check, March 2024 ver. (a.k.a. Play Your Own Game)

Poll: Select the most frequent cause for force disparity in a 10vs10 game

1. Because your team get snowballed in all 10 individual 1v1 ranked game.
   
2. Because you have four arty/air teammates that never spawns anything in the first 30 minutes.

Poll: Select your response to fix the force disparity issue in a 10vs10 game

1. I wish to reinforce my teammate who suffered the most terrible losses and make them rich.
   
2. I wish to reinforce my arty/air teammates and make them richer.

WARNO Economics 101 (a.k.a. Understand Your Own Game)

The fundamental equation of the flow of wealth in game

Accumulated income = Points in reserve + Units remaining + Units lost + Resale loss

The Accumulated Income is the same for all 20 players in a 10vs10 lobby, therefore we can rewrite it into:

Units remaining = Accumulated income - Points in reserve - Units lost - Resale loss

Then it is immediately clear that by creating upkeep for units, you are punishing playes with high units remaining, and encouraging both players that never spawns anything, and players suffered heavy losses.

The Cap that NEVER Caps Anything

But wait, there is a maximum point cap at 5000. This should punish players that never spawns!

However, this 5000 cap may never actually caps anything. Since Eugen decide to introduce in its default lobby with only 10v10 lobbies but not ranked lobbies.

A quick tour of the game immediately reveals that 10vs10 game gives 195 points every 75 seconds. And a quick math shows that 5000 points is worth 5000/195*75/60=32minutes. Wow! most 10vs10 game won't even last more than 40 minutes.

From my hands on experimentation on being an arty noob in 10vs10 game, you can arty all your like for 40 minutes and only managed to save a treasure of mere 3000 points because supplies are expensive. This 5000 cap will NEVER cap anything in any 10vs10 game.

The Obvious Fix

You want to reinforce the player that suffers heaviest loss? Easy, remember

Units lost + Resale loss = Accumulated income - Points in reserve - Units remaining

If you want to reinforce them, you should charge an upkeep for both deployed units and unspent points. Which means,

Unspent points should also have its upkeep!

In this design, we ensure that only the real underdog players that took the most beating claim their benefits, not the fake underdogs spamming arties and only spawn tank blobs in the last minute for fun.

This isn't even an unorthodox idea. You turned down an offer of resources from high command? The high command will probably keep the offer for you but is not stupid enough to not redirect some resources. The high command is storing not banking your resources, the offer should be volatile to some extent.

One problem with charging upkeep for unspent points is they complicate the planning process for expensive assets and urges players to spend point as fast as possible, this can be easily fixed by a tax exemption amount of, say 600 points. Anything below that will not be charged.

Or if this fix is impossible, please make the point cap actually work and caps something.

[Noblesse Oblige [KG] ⳩]

I agree that it is not a great solution to 10v10. But COH games do this and seem to be good games. But artificially long by virtue of giving more points to the losing side. Personally I would rather lose than be given a "handout" to get back up to fight again.

[Sneaky_Beaky]

I really don't understand the goal of this mechanic. I'll often notice big gaps in a 10v10 map where noone played at all. So I'll deploy units to hold that area, then go and play whatever I wanted to play (city inf, jet CAP, whatever). So I'm gonna be punished for filling in gaps in the line, by having my income reduced?

[Joe]

not everything is done for just multiplayer games. i like warno a lot but i think this mechanic will be really good for playing against ai as it will lower the unit spam in skirmish. i actually cant wait for this mechanic

[Sneaky_Beaky]

Originally posted by Nats:

The main problem with this game is nobody plays it offline because the AI is atrocious. So it comes down to playing purely multiplayer and then you are immediately up against extremely advanced players.

Also compared to Regiments the gameplay is pretty limited to frantic clicking with no ability to use any strategy or tactics - its just get the most tanks or helicopters on the field asap and browbeat the enemy. Pretty limited stuff that.

No wonder the game franchise is struggling - no imagination or creativity - no desire to do anything new because the hardcore players shout too loudly. Its a spiral down to doom and the hardcore players do not realise that they are killing the very thing they love .....

When Broken Arrow comes out this game will certainly struggle. And Regiments has already taken the audience who prefer solo play.

This argument is very specious. Single player people are trying to play through campaigns. Syrian Warfare and Regiments have nearly identical player counts according to Steamcharts.com. I really don't think that has anything to do with Eugen's choices. I think SP fans are just trying to play whatever cool campaigns they can find...

Yo and the franchise is struggling because the former publisher went ape-o and tried to destroy the franchise..........

[Dark Sun Gwyndolin]

Originally posted by Nats:

The main problem with this game is nobody plays it offline because the AI is atrocious. So it comes down to playing purely multiplayer and then you are immediately up against extremely advanced players.

Also compared to Regiments the gameplay is pretty limited to frantic clicking with no ability to use any strategy or tactics - its just get the most tanks or helicopters on the field asap and browbeat the enemy. Pretty limited stuff that.

No wonder the game franchise is struggling - no imagination or creativity - no desire to do anything new because the hardcore players shout too loudly. Its a spiral down to doom and the hardcore players do not realise that they are killing the very thing they love .....

When Broken Arrow comes out this game will certainly struggle. And Regiments has already taken the audience who prefer solo play.

I tried Regiments, but found the mechanics bizarre and the audio unimmersive. In particular, the way IFV's are a "stance" system rather than a separate unit is strange.

[Noblesse Oblige [KG] ⳩]

Originally posted by Nats:

Originally posted by Fear Denies Faith:

I tried Regiments, but found the mechanics bizarre and the audio unimmersive. In particular, the way IFV's are a "stance" system rather than a separate unit is strange.

Just makes for less micromanagement which is good from my point of view. You are fielding whole platoons not individual vehicles so you can concentrate on the tactics. I just find the Wargames to be too micromanagement intensive - babysitting every vehicle is impossible.

I found that it was very limited. Regiments for example will not let you move troops away from vehicles they were unloaded from. It's ok. But WARNO is definitely better. Additionally Regiments has no multiplayer.

[Noblesse Oblige [KG] ⳩]

Originally posted by Nats:

Originally posted by Fear Denies Faith:

I tried Regiments, but found the mechanics bizarre and the audio unimmersive. In particular, the way IFV's are a "stance" system rather than a separate unit is strange.

Just makes for less micromanagement which is good from my point of view. You are fielding whole platoons not individual vehicles so you can concentrate on the tactics. I just find the Wargames to be too micromanagement intensive - babysitting every vehicle is impossible.

What I would be playing instead of WARNO though is armored brigade. But it was no multiplayer and does height mapping and a few other things crudely. Maybe #2 will be better.

As for Regiments it does things like not allowing unloaded troops to leave their vehicles and is single player. WARNO is more feature rich.

Broken Arrow for me had AMAZING effects and maps while seeming less human than WARNO (nobody ever retreated on their own I don't think for example) and having an far more simplistic "you press the buttons" kind of interface. WARNO's behaviors settings win the competition for me. However SD2 still is better than WARNO in that WARNO leans towards broken arrow in terms of armor mechanics (chipping away at hitpoints)

[Nats]

I think its a good mechanic that maybe will need some bedding in. It works well in Regiments where you can only field a certain amount of units at a time. That is great for making you learn to utilise a limited size force. This is important in removing the spamming nature of these games.

[Noblesse Oblige [KG] ⳩]

Originally posted by Nats:

I think its a good mechanic that maybe will need some bedding in. It works well in Regiments where you can only field a certain amount of units at a time. That is great for making you learn to utilise a limited size force. This is important in removing the spamming nature of these games.

Good point. But WARNO is realistic enough in that you can bring in the "regiment" or "divisions" strength gradually so to speak and you DO run out.

Red Dragon was more spammy.

[Nats]

The videos I've seen are just as bad. the whole game just goes in constant waves until someone gets the upper hand. Thats not at all realistic. Real wars are fought and won with effective use of the limited assets available. Generals do not have unlimited units to drip field into a battle, as employing reinforcements take time in real life. It is something that is purely unique to these games - because there are pretty much unlimited units and you can call in reinforcements and get them into place within a minute to counteract enemy moves. Again, not realistic at all. Makes a mockery of the gameplay and has been an issue since the very first Wargame.

[seashell]

Originally posted by Nats:

The videos I've seen are just as bad. the whole game just goes in constant waves until someone gets the upper hand. Thats not at all realistic. Real wars are fought and won with effective use of the limited assets available. Generals do not have unlimited units to drip field into a battle, as employing reinforcements take time in real life. It is something that is purely unique to these games - because there are pretty much unlimited units and you can call in reinforcements and get them into place within a minute to counteract enemy moves. Again, not realistic at all. Makes a mockery of the gameplay and has been an issue since the very first Wargame.

but you only have limited amount of units in the deck.
in the time frame of 40 minutes, yes, but otherwise it's finite.

[Vindicare]

As far as I understood the goal of the new mechanic, it want's to give players an option to reduce complexity by don't punishing players, which focus on their on ground units, which already suffered attrition and losses, and tend to forget to reinforce them. But I'm not sure, if it helps in a game, where map control and building up critical momentum are key parts of controlling and hence winning it. In this regard the new mechanic seems a little bit counterproductive.

[Nats]

The problem as well is death comes quickly in this game - usually with one hit. So units are very short lived. It doesnt give you time to form much of a strategy.

[Vindicare]

Originally posted by Nats:

The problem as well is death comes quickly in this game - usually with one hit. So units are very short lived. It doesnt give you time to form much of a strategy.

Why is this dependent on the time to kill? If your probing attack gets blundered or your recon spots some key units like log, you know that there probably is a somewhat strong concentration of units. With this in mind you can form corherent strategies, which do not include throwing your men in the proverbial meat grinder :D

[Dark Sun Gwyndolin]

Originally posted by Vindicare:

Originally posted by Nats:

The problem as well is death comes quickly in this game - usually with one hit. So units are very short lived. It doesnt give you time to form much of a strategy.

Why is this dependent on the time to kill? If your probing attack gets blundered or your recon spots some key units like log, you know that there probably is a somewhat strong concentration of units. With this in mind you can form corherent strategies, which do not include throwing your men in the proverbial meat grinder :D

This is something I'm struggling with as a novice NATO player. If I push, I get destroyed by PACT ATGM's, and if I stay still, I get destroyed by PACT MLRS. What's the "coherent" strategy to beat that?