Time to re-balance Dom's units?

[Ulysses]

Guys,

This thread started from a spin out of a post asking if the Dompedia description for MRL units (multiple rocket launchers) was wrong, or whether the unit had become broken somehow? Original link here → https://forum.nexonm.com/forum/nexon...cription-wrong

Turns out both are true, lol. The Dompedia description has the attack rating for MRLs about 10x higher than the attack value actually is. And, from the feedback from more experienced players, the MRL unit is generally pretty lousy. Which is why nobody uses them.

But guys comments on the original MRL question got me to thinking that there seem to be a lot of unit classes in Dom that are really unpopular.

So I decided to figure what units attackers are actually using. Below I've listed every attacker in my Defense Log. If the attacking army included that troop type, they add +1 point:

Rifles 23
Infantry 17
Engineers 12
Raiders 11
Fighter planes 9
Tanks 9
Artillery 8

Bombers 3
Assault vehicles 3
Tac helicopter 3
Generals 3
Machine guns 2
Ambulance 2
Paratroops 2
Heavy tank 1

Most attacking armies, in MP, seem to have a core of rifles and/or infantry, tanks and artillery... Pure looters usually went for raiders plus engineers, with maybe some of the other stuff... Fighters were well used too... But less than four armies in my entire defense log chose anything outside that list...

Worth noting that some unit classes were really unpopular and never got chosen by an MP attacker:

Mortars 0
Attack helicopter 0

Commando 0
Bazooka 0
Armored car 0
APC 0
MRL (rocket launcher) 0

The last five are all factory troops so I guess it makes sense that nobody wants to use em to raid for oil in MP, if it's gonna cost you a heap of oil to do it. But given that fighters, bombers, tactical helicopters, heavy tanks and even paratroops, which also cost a ton of oil, DID get used for MP, there's obviously something about the five factory troops that were not chosen that makes them less useful.

Soooooo, where I'm getting to with this, is hey Nexon, it would be really neat if you could maybe consider rebalancing these unpopular units... It's awesome that you've created cool unit classes and fun animations, to make Dominatinons more interesting... but some of these guys, mortars and MRLs especially, are never, ever used...

As an opener, how about these as suggestions...

Mortars - (1) increase DPS (right now mortar DPS is less than infantry DPS, and I've seen enough Tom Hanks films to know that if a mortar hits you, you're not fighting no more), (2) add splash damage vs infantry (from Tom Hanks films again, lol), (3) reduce troop space to maybe 4

Attack helicopter - (1) reduce their vulnerability from troop fire (I don't remember many Vietnam films where a single artillery unit took out a fleet of choppers), (2) increase damage per second (at 49 DPS, an attack helicopter needs nearly 30 seconds to kill one infantryman or a lifetime to kill a regular tank... Guys, have you seen the Road to Basra cockpit videos?!?!)

Commando - actually I kinda like these, and reckon they're used in ww not mp

Bazooka - (1) increase DPS (right now a bazooka needs about >20x hits to kill a regular tank, or 35x hits to kill a heavy tank. In this game, that's not ever going to happen. But I'm guessing 2-3x bazooka hits would do the trick in the real world?), (2) if you increased DPS to something more realistic, to make these guys more useful, then maybe reduce their hp to balance that (a bazooka probably shouldn't have much more hitpoints than a regular infantryman)

Armored car - these are handy for rapid response infantry eaters, in a town center defense role for ww; their oil cost makes them useless as actual raiders tho

APC - almost never seen in MP, but occasionally used for ww, these guys feel useful once you add the library upgrades; could increase the hp a bit tho? Right now an APC hp is 10% of a tank hp, 50% of an armored car, or 75% of a commando. Are APCs really that weak?

MRL - Rocket launchers are an awesome idea. From other WW2 games I've played, German Nebelwerfer and Soviet Katyusha rocket launchers were rapid fire, high impact, infantry killers... Wikipedia reckons four Soviet Katyusha batteries threw out the same amount of TNT as 72 (yes, you read that right, seventy two!) regular artillery guns... to move Dom's MRLs even close to real world, you gotta seriously up their DPS (right now an MRL fires with less DPS than a rifle guy, and enjoys only slightly higher defensive hp than an infantryman, for the bargain price of 600 oil each)... Could maybe add shock suppression versus surrounding enemy troops too... those squealy noises must have been seriously off-putting, right?

Just some quick ideas. You guys are the experts. As always, thanks for a great game! Please take this as the request for minor tweaking that it is. To make the wonderfully wide range of units that you've taken so much effort to create useful to your player base.

I'd love my base to get hit by more than just the usual suspect units... and I'd be happy to use em too...

 

[SnowierNic]

Hi! I think that factory troops shouldn't be changed, I think that they need blessings! A weapon and armor blessing.
Concerning Attack helicopter, we should be able to improve it in the university (+ 30% hitpoints/damage)
APC are great! When I use my normal barracks army (howies, riflemen, healing convoys and tanks), I usually use 2 APC and 2 bazookas (Now I switched for a full HT army ). But I agree that APC should maybe have more hitpoints (3000/3500 on level 1).
Good list btw!

 

[Alexey]

I think to have a clearer picture we should exclude raider attacks and TC sniping attacks and compare only full-army assaults. From my experience APC’s are one of the most effective units and they are often used by high level players . And so are the generals.

 

[pckrn]

most of the people that dont use the apc are people whose factory level isnt high enough so they can only wish

bazookas are useful in ww

and.. this is only half on topic, but what ive done before: train armoured cars with main acc, donate to alt acc, raid!

 

[yemen]

Ulysees , your base is high enough level that you are not going to see the same mix of multiplayer attacks that many will. Yours will be heavily biased towards raiding armies, with a few all out assaults mixed in. But many army mixes will just hit next.

APCs are part of my army mix any time I am not doing pure HT raids. They are amazing for both MP and war, the biggest downside being that the missile silo can nearly kill them in a shot. So for MP I only use them against bases with no silo, or where my planes can one pass kill the silo, or it is on an exposed edge. For war they are a key part of the mix. Adding more HP to them would not be a bad thing, except that it makes them more likely to draw the silo fire and then have all the troops around them die. Properly deployed in groups, the infantry take most of the damage instead of the APC itself.

Bazookas are an awesome war troop, with the best space to dps ratio in the entire game if maxed out. Very good for war. But I don't use them much in MP because of their tendency to die and the oil cost. They do 7x the base damage against tanks, walls and buildings, so over 2200 dps on elite bazookas. One on one, they take a few shots to kill a tank, but a group of at least 3-4 go through a lot faster.

You are right on about armored cars - great war base donation, or town center defender troop in general. Not tanks, so aircraft don't kill in one pass, and they move so fast they often miss anyway. They absolutely destroy shooters or infantry, and can kill a decoy fast. Not a common raiding unit though.

Mortars, attack helicopters, saboteurs all show up in my low defense alts attack log. They aren't the backbone of most armies, but some people use them. No one who is a very effective attacker though. As a cold war only unit, I'm not sure the MRL is very important right now, but it definitely needs a very large boost to get serious consideration. Basically a factory version of the mortar.

 

[Manifesto]

The problem, imo, is the way defenses are structured, there's only a select few combinations that will work. In later ages against well developed bases the strategy options are: heavy walls require raiders or all-out tank/archer/artillery attacks; Silo requires planes/all out attack or HT armies. Not a lot of 'in-between'.
In real life, every army doesn't necessarily use every troop they have. Sappers are used against obstacles, bazookas are used against steel, Artillery is used to soften defenses, footmen are used to secure ground, tanks are used for fast penetration, etc.
I like your list and suggestions, and while I agree they could be buffed, I've found the factory troops have their place in ages up to IA and against a variety of bases. I did a lot of experimenting and have found a use for all of them. (except guerilla, never like him)
There's no reason why an attacking army can't have a mix of troops, no-one says you have to use all the troops in your army.

 

[Ulysses]

Thanks for your feedback guys!

Sounds like experienced players love their APCs (looks like am gonna have to experiment more with these!!)

Bazookas are peanut butter jelly. Some of you like em. Some never use em. But when you use em, you use lots of them in teams. Or they don't kill snuff, lol.

Mortars and attack helicopters, at least with the stats they currently have, are like Big Foot... it's supposed to be there, but you rarely see em... Too weak. And better alternative choices...

The way I see it is that somebody at Nexon spent days to weeks designing the background, stats, animations of all of their (pretty cool!) units... So I'm sure that, that person (or team) would be happy to see their lovingly created units actually used... Ball's in Nexon's court, hehe...

 

[FroggyKilla]

Maybe if the Mortars projectile Speed was faster and the AoE was better, I’d consider it.

 

[Ulysses]

Maybe if the Mortars projectile Speed was faster and the AoE was better, I’d consider it.

What's AOE froggy?

 

[FroggyKilla]

Area of Effect. I was thinking Mortars could be viable if they hit multiple buildings.

 

[Manifesto]

A mortar doesn’t compare to an artillery unit in RL, why should it be any different in Dominations?

 

[FroggyKilla]

Game balance. Also, if we’re going to get into the irl stuff, I’ve got plenty of stuff that would destroy the logic of this game? Shall I continue?

 

[Ulysses]

Oooh! Now that's an idea!
Great suggestion Froggy
Mortars with a wider area of effect would be much more interesting...

 

[Ulysses]

Starting with the RL fact (Wiki/Google) that WW2 Katyusha/Nebelwerfer MRLs had 72x the firepower of four regular artillery batteries... but in Dom, MRLs just about scrape the dmg per second of a single rifleman... For better or worse, RL and Dom aren't always perfect mirrors...

 

[Bootney Lee Fonsworth]

IRL rifles aren't able to magically arc their bullets over walls either. Nor are British rifles inherently longer-ranged because they had longbowmen during medieval times.

 

[FroggyKilla]

They should probably take a lesson from Clash’s Valkyrie changes. They changed her AI to have her go between multiple buildings. Worked like magic to make her viable. Hopefully if they did something similar with the Mortar, they could be viable, too.

 

[Ulysses]

Haha, true that! Next you're gonna being saying that modern Greek & French tanks suck... and they shouldn't be stronger just because some jumped up Macedonian used to ponce about with his mates on horses more than 2,000 years ago... I think we get the picture...