Game Development Discussion: Superiorities Feedback

[Village]

Hey everyone,

I wanted to start this post with a huge thank you for everything Pre has done for the community. He’s been an important part of the game for years and his presence will be greatly missed. Good luck Pre!

In other news, we’ve seen a lot of uproar around the upcoming superiority and beige changes (more information in the update post here https://forum.politicsandwar.com/index.php?/topic/35724-war-rewrite-test-server-tournament-and-loads-of-other-changes-june-2023-update/). As such, we’ve spent the past week and a bit discussing some potential modifications and replacement ideas for superiorities (a post about beige will come soon). I’ve detailed these below and we’d love to hear your own ideas and your feedback on these ideas in the comments below and in the poll above!

Goal

Before I outline our two ideas, I want to briefly set the stage for why we want to do these changes, to help inform your feedback and your own alternative ideas.

• The goal of these changes is twofold; to help provide lower tier nations a better opportunity to fight back and to lengthen the deciding portion of the war.

Ideas

As a note, the first idea is what we’d like to move forward with, however in the pursuit of transparency and discussion we’ve included the other ideas as possibilities should the first not work out.

Once an idea has been decided upon, I’ll announce it and implement it on the test server and it’ll be live for testing for the last week of the tournament.

Replacement Idea 1: Army value modifier

Simply put, this idea aims to even the playing field across city counts and enable smaller nations to have a better ability to fight back by facing opponents with a proportionally smaller army value.

This proposal is to take the calculated army value (for calculating attack success, not casualties) and raise it to the power of 3/4. I.e. If I have an army value of 1000, my army value is now 1000^(3/4) = 177, and my opponent’s army value goes from 800 to 150.

For casualties, the kills for each unit will be calculated using the formula (the army values here are pre-adjustment to the power of 3/4) ((att army value + def army value) / (att army value ^ (3/4) + def army value ^ (3/4))) * (side army value ^ (3/4)). For example, to calculate attacker kills the side army value would be the attacker’s army value before being adjusted to the power of 3/4. This formula has the effect that it reduces attacker losses and increases defender losses when a smaller military is attacking a larger, and increases attacker losses while reducing defender losses when a larger military is attacking a smaller.

Below we have some data about how this will affect attack odds and casualties:

• Current odds with some key components marked

• Odds under the new system

• https://www.desmos.com/calculator/2tyqeupxac
  • This allows you to play around and mess with the army value used for calculating casualties
• https://www.desmos.com/calculator/r7n5aiucer
  • This is calculating ship losses in the new system, with both upper and lower bounds

Replacement Idea 2: Nerfed superiorities

The second idea is very simple, nerf the effectiveness of enemy superiorities, thereby making it so superiorities are less of a deciding factor in war and that lower tier nations are not as adversely affected by the improved ability of the upper tier to gain and hold superiorities. This change does however make it harder for a lower tier nation to achieve and leverage a superiority, it’s a question of whether it’s worth the trade-off.

• For Ground Control, reduce the number of planes killed by tanks by 20%.
• For Air Superiority, make the reduction in tank army value based on the formula max(your_percentage_of_max_planes - (enemy_percentage_of_max_planes / 2), 0). So for example, if you hold the superiority and have 100% of your max planes while your opponent has 50% of your max planes, the modifier is 75%, meaning the army value of each tank is reduced by 20 * 0.75 = 15.

Modification Idea 1: Only for larger nations

In this idea, the new two phase superiorities only apply to nations with 10% more cities than their opponent (number subject to change after feedback). This means that the system functions as originally proposed for the larger nation, however for the smaller nation they move through the system in 2 phase increments instead of 1, so it only takes 1 IT to take the superiority and one other type of victory to remove it. The exception to this is when they reduce it across multiple wars, then it is only reduced by 1 phase.

Conclusion

Overall, we’d love your feedback, so please comment new ideas below and vote in the poll. Have a great day everyone!

[Themonia]

For the Modification Idea, I think it would be wise to do balancing through changing attack success/casualty percentages like Replacement Idea 1 does, rather than having a difference in war mechanics depending on city count.

[Abaddon]

2 minutes ago, Village said:

Replacement Idea 1: Army value modifier

Simply put, this idea aims to even the playing field across city counts and enable smaller nations to have a better ability to fight back by facing opponents with a proportionally smaller army value.

This proposal is to take the calculated army value (for calculating attack success, not casualties) and raise it to the power of 3/4. I.e. If I have an army value of 1000, my army value is now 1000^(3/4) = 177, and my opponent’s army value goes from 800 to 150.

For casualties, the kills for each unit will be calculated using the formula (the army values here are pre-adjustment to the power of 3/4) ((att army value + def army value) / (att army value ^ (3/4) + def army value ^ (3/4))) * (side army value ^ (3/4)). For example, to calculate attacker kills the side army value would be the attacker’s army value before being adjusted to the power of 3/4. This formula has the effect that it reduces attacker losses and increases defender losses when a smaller military is attacking a larger, and increases attacker losses while reducing defender losses when a larger military is attacking a smaller.

Below we have some data about how this will affect attack odds and casualties:

• Current odds with some key components marked

• Odds under the new system

• https://www.desmos.com/calculator/2tyqeupxac
  • This allows you to play around and mess with the army value used for calculating casualties
• https://www.desmos.com/calculator/r7n5aiucer
  • This is calculating ship losses in the new system, with both upper and lower bounds

Love this tbh

[Dorothy Latimer]

I voted No on 2, not because i'm opposed to it but because I'm too indifferent about it to support it. 
I voted no on 3, because i am vehemently opposed to it, I also oppose 4 , though not to the same level as 3.

[BettaChecka]

Slight alteration to 

Replacement Idea 2: Nerfed superiorities

for the second purpose of these changes being:

9 minutes ago, Village said:

to lengthen the deciding portion of the war.

I believe the nerf to Air Superiority would help however nerfing Ground Control has a lesser effect. If you buff GC you create variation in the meta and require both Ground and Air be controlled for the war to be decided compared to the current meta of controlling Air means you win the war. 

This helps lengthen the deciding portion of the war as it increases the amount of destruction required to "decide" the war by doubling the actions required to gain control over the entire war and is not possible to do within the first few turns post blitz.



Another alternate addition to this effect is having Ships play some affect on Planes in some regard. This increases their relevance in the game in general and makes them worth the high cost of ships themselves. 

[Unlimited]

Sexy

[Village]

Just now, BettaChecka said:

I believe the nerf to Air Superiority would help however nerfing Ground Control has a lesser effect. If you buff GC you create variation in the meta and require both Ground and Air be controlled for the war to be decided compared to the current meta of controlling Air means you win the war. 

This helps lengthen the deciding portion of the war as it increases the amount of destruction required to "decide" the war by doubling the actions required to gain control over the entire war and is not possible to do within the first few turns post blitz.

That's a good point, I don't think we're gonna end up moving forward with the nerfing idea (the poll is a slaughter 🤣), but I'll be sure to remember this for any future discussions! Making both superiorities more relevant would be amazing, thanks for the feedback!

[BettaChecka]

Just now, Village said:

(the poll is a slaughter 🤣)

Generally people will vote before even seeing any alterations to ideas

[Village]

Just now, BettaChecka said:

Generally people will vote before even seeing any alterations to ideas

Fair enough yeah 🤣. I think we'd rather go with the first idea, but I'll definitely remember this for the future or if we do decide to move forward with the nerfing one in some capacity.

[Jacob Knox]

Gee, for some reason I get the feeling that Village wants us to read the post first. 😂

[Unlimited]

Just now, Jacob Knox said:

Gee, for some reason I get the feeling that Village wants us to read the post first. 😂

Read it first or ill kick you from aurora

[Autumn Annayah]

All I know is that Schwinners suck and idea one is pretty alright.

[Avatar Patrick]

I'd prefer to see a buff to military score to deal with this problem. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me or seem fair for a nation with a much larger military to be nerfed AFTER the war is declared. Generally speaking, bigger military should mean a greater chance to win. City score should be nerfed as well and I don't think superiority needs to be messed with to much.

[Kyubnyan]

Original Idea:
Not a huge fan of it because it slows the general pace of war and makes ground blitzes pretty bad but I wouldn't be too upset if it makes it to prod.

Replacement idea one:
Interesting for sure but it increases the reliance on RNG way too much for my liking since 2.5x is already quite a lot. In combination with the buff to suiciding (especially suiciding planes with a double buy and dogfighting) it might be a bit much but I haven't run the numbers on how much of a buff it gives to suicide dogfights. probably needs more messing with ranges of guaranteed IT/UF but could be workable with modifications.

Replacement idea two:

I like it a bit more than stages of superiority but I think that air superiority should be a little bit better than 75% effective tanks (maybe 60-70?)

Modification one:

I'm mostly fine with this one but maybe only for when the larger nation is downdeclaring. Makes surprise attacks on unmilled opponents even more devastating.

[BigMorf]

I voted. 

Should I read the post now? 

only joking. 

I do think that the stages are an okay thing, but it still just makes Air Superiority the end all be all. Ground control as it stands before these changes is just so much weaker now. 

[MBaku]

I don’t like 1 for a couple reason

First, this magnifies the importance of superiorities that are RNG based. People already hate plane casualties. Imagine what they will think when a c40 gets updec’d by some c33s and they all get ITs with a 700 plane disadvantage.

Second, I don’t understand all the implications of the math but greater uncertainty in attack outcome doesn’t lead to greater competition. It just leads to a smaller reliance on strategy because a larger portion is chance. 

2- I’ve been a fan of nerfing superiorities because they are too powerful in war. I like the plane nerf. Scaling air superiority based on plane differential is smart because it won’t be so powerful at the beginning of the war. This helps achieve the goal of prolonging the deciding part of the war without removing the strategy. If anything it could increase the strategy as the optimal plane buys and ground attacks become very situational. the certainty and incredible effectiveness has given us a meta where Air superiority is everything, especially with how many planes are killed with one attack vs the rebuy rate. This change ensures that ground is still an option early in a war. 
 

I also recommend nerfing plane v plane casualties a small amount. Once planes are dead the war is over. If they last longer, the war lasts longer. 
 

 

3. Punishing larger nations just isn’t a good approach to anything. It’s also not that black and white. Larger nations could be declared on by smaller nations because they’re not milled up. Two phase superiority vs one phase would make recovering very difficult. Additionally, it will be very confusing when you’re in a big conflict where some wars are one phase and others are two phase, some are defensive others offensive etc. can a one phase break two phases of AS that are held in other wars? The possible permeations don’t make sense to me with the current explanation. 

 

Proposal: if the goal is to make the opening stage of the war last longer, then reduce starting maps to 4 for each side. Offense attacks are more powerful, particularly with planes. Giving defenders more time to respond would help.

[Zei-Sakura Alsainn]

I find it very funny people are voting for more RNG. I seriously hope it doesn't take a super genius on the design team to realize actually doing that will result in everyone raising pitchforks about it 6 months later because everyone already !@#$es about the RNG that does exist.

[Ducc Zucc]

3 hours ago, Village said:

That's a good point, I don't think we're gonna end up moving forward with the nerfing idea (the poll is a slaughter 🤣), but I'll be sure to remember this for any future discussions! Making both superiorities more relevant would be amazing, thanks for the feedback!

Don't make a decision so hastily, not even a percent of the active player base has reacted yet.

 

Also I agree with what was said above, replacement option 1 just leads to game luck deciding your wars. If you want to prolong wars just go with replacement option 2 and make it take longer to kill your opponents instead of letting dice rolls have an even bigger impact.

Edited July 1, 2023 by Ducc Zucc

[Majima Goro]

We should remove superiorities completely.

My reasoning is simple: The reason there are problems with superiorities is because superiorities are a thing. Removing them will automatically remove all other problems associated with them. Superiorities benefit the larger army. And removing superiorities makes it easier for smaller armies to deal more damage to larger armies. 

[Unlimited]

3 hours ago, Zei-Sakura Alsainn said:

I find it very funny people are voting for more RNG. I seriously hope it doesn't take a super genius on the design team to realize actually doing that will result in everyone raising pitchforks about it 6 months later because everyone already !@#$es about the RNG that does exist.

I dont really understand this point? Can you enlighten me?
We arent adding any RNG at all - and we are just changing the chances - so in half of cases it'll benefit you and in half of cases it wont - so what's the issue?

Edited July 1, 2023 by Unlimited

[Popat]

Just now, Majima Goro said:

We should remove superiorities completely.

My reasoning is simple: The reason there are problems with superiorities is because superiorities are a thing. Removing them will automatically remove all other problems associated with them. Superiorities benefit the larger army. And removing superiorities makes it easier for smaller armies to deal more damage to larger armies. 

I agree with you but the naval superiority should not be removed as It will make the ships useless.

[Ayayay]

Need an abstain for the other 3 because i want to vote no changes alone. The constant changeing of the war system is a development black hole and has been since pnw came out. Every change to it since 2016 has been a net negative that has worsened the game and sucked endless energy from developing new features in favor of the endless revision of making war better. I have said a variation of following comment multiple times over the years and I will post it yet again: No war update will satisfy everyone and revisions only makes things worse as everyone currently playing generally finds the war system acceptable enough to keep playing but any changes to it threatens to push them away and quit when they experience it the following war. The constant loss of older players in government or leadership roles who quit following unpopular war changes has happened since at least the military population update.

No one is holding a gun to your head forcing you to update the war system yet again. You can always just leave it and move onto new features.

[Keegoz]

Just now, Malal said:

Need an abstain for the other 3 because i want to vote no changes alone. The constant changeing of the war system is a development black hole and has been since pnw came out. Every change to it since 2016 has been a net negative that has worsened the game and sucked endless energy from developing new features in favor of the endless revision of making war better. I have said a variation of following comment multiple times over the years and I will post it yet again: No war update will satisfy everyone and revisions only makes things worse as everyone currently playing generally finds the war system acceptable enough to keep playing but any changes to it threatens to push them away and quit when they experience it the following war. The constant loss of older players in government or leadership roles who quit following unpopular war changes has happened since at least the military population update.

No one is holding a gun to your head forcing you to update the war system yet again. You can always just leave it and move onto new features.

I'm still in favour of going back to 2019 war mechanics  

[Savi Correspara]

Concerning the army value modifier- no, you should not decrease the advantage of coming into a conflict with a larger military force than the enemy. Firstly, it is unjust. Unless you want to develop a myriad of realistic features like terrain, training, equipment, supply lines that must be maintained, and great generals/leaders that could affect the war's outcome, you must allow the nation with a larger army to have a much greater chance of victory. In terms of how this plays out in the game, keeping tabs on which alliances are milling up and being politically aware so you don't get caught off guard is a vital part of gameplay that should not be detracted from. 

 

Concerning 2. Nerfing superiorities- I like one aspect of this. In my experience every bitz begins with airstrikes. simply because halving an opponent's tank value is devastating and the planes can't be rebuilt at the pace they're destroyed. changing the amount that air superiority decreases tank value- so that it is not decreased as much as half- would be a beneficial change. But please don't institute two phase superiority. I know it's already on the test server... it has no significant benefits in my opinion, adding it just to make things more complicated is not doing us a favor. 

 

Modification: only for larger nations 

nyet.

 

(and no, I am not a "larger nation", most of my wars are updeclares.) 

 

[Raphael]

Interesting ideas. I voted against all of them though. I'll try to keep my thoughts brief:

Superiority changes: I believe the current proposed change will make updeclares/blitzes harder and as a result be bad for the game. The attacker advantage, and superiorities as a result, are powerful tools in bringing down higher city count nations with a standing military. Superiorities are pretty essential for updeclares. They do make downdeclares worse, but they're not the main issue with downdeclares.

• Constructive feedback: Leave superiorities as they are now, potentially nerf air superiority to a smaller percentage than halving tank values. Maybe reduce tank values by 33% instead?

Replacement idea 1: I may just not have understood it, but I don't think it makes sense for smaller armies to suddenly get a boost against larger armies. I also think the math is approaching over-complexity for this game.

• constructive feedback: Rework Fortify to give a better bonus - maybe something like this idea. You could also have fortify reduce the amount of resistance each attack does, basically prolonging a war and occupying a war slot and being annoying.

Replacement Idea 2: I voted no but as you can see above, I think small reductions could be good. Superiorities should be kept fairly strong (in your words: a deciding factor) for my above mentioned reasoning though.

Modification idea 1: This would be a pretty wild nerf to upper tiers to the point of unfairness in my opinion. Changing core mechanics in such a punishing way would be counter-intuitive to enjoyment of the game and fairness to the players. I hate to sound biased but this would disproportionately harm raiders and turn the meta for larger AA's on its head for... seemingly no reason. Whales shouldn't be rendered useless.

 

 

The main problems with whales are their disproportionate economic advantage and the domino-effect they cause in large wars. Economics Prefontaine started to address with the food consumption changes and power plant upkeeps. The domino effect actually used to be reversed back in the earlygame of PnW, where large nations would get knocked down into lower tiers when they lost and be able to make a second-round comeback. This was mainly nerfed into the ground with score changes though.

• Constructive feedback: look into infra score changes, more upkeep adjustments, maybe even nerf the nuclear power plants (reduce the amount of infra each one powers), also look into reverting/reworking city score back to 50 or keep it at 75 (I think raising it back to 100 is proposed rn), buffing military score, and completely zeroing project score imo.

Edited July 1, 2023 by Roberts