Could little control group numbers be put above units?

[Oddnerd]

Hi all,

I don't know what can and can't be modded, but if it is possible, would people like to see a small number above a squad's lead model which indicates the control group that they belong to? Yeah I know, L2P, thank you for the top-notch advice, but depending on which race you play you may find yourself with multiple identical units and unless you are one of those people who puts multiple squads under a control group, being able to select a specific unit by hotkey quickly is important.

Thoughts?

[Psycho]

I'd want it too if it's possible at all. Too many times have I gotten caught up in the moment and forgotten which scout squad was which when kiting when I go double on them. Same with other double units that require constant micro.

[Torpid]

That's a fundamental point of the micro of this game. Keeping track of each of your units and memorising which one they are..

Wouldn't rate it myself.

Also encourages 'spam' of the same unit.

[Psycho]

Also encourages 'spam' of the same unit.

How exactly? I mean it doesn't buff any units nor changes the balance, and spamming a unit purely to micro them still takes up a ton of your focus.

Honestly curious.

[Oddnerd]

We have the unit cards along the right side of the screen showing basic information about each unit (including their control group number) and that does not somehow detract from the micromanagement part of the game. There is still a need to be consciously keeping track of all your units - this is just a small quality-of-life improvement for when multiple units in the game look identical visually. Unless these little numbers next to the unit card are going to impede someone's ability to play I don't know what harm they could cause.

Plenty of other games have small control group indicators like what I am proposing. I don't think the reason they are not present in this game is because the developers thought not having them would greatly enhance the micromanagement component of the game, it is because the game is, in terms of design, a sub-par, half-baked RTS, but somehow every design oversight or omission still gets defended like it was deliberately designed that way for an optimal gameplay experience.

[Torpid]

Also encourages 'spam' of the same unit.

How exactly? I mean it doesn't buff any units nor changes the balance, and spamming a unit purely to micro them still takes up a ton of your focus.

Honestly curious.

Becuase one of the greatest weaknesses with getting 3 or 4 of the same squad is that you do start to lose track of which hotkey is for which squad. If this was the case it would be a lot easier to micromanage that 4x fire dragon blob.

[Torpid]

We have the unit cards along the right side of the screen showing basic information about each unit (including their control group number) and that does not somehow detract from the micromanagement part of the game. There is still a need to be consciously keeping track of all your units - this is just a small quality-of-life improvement for when multiple units in the game look identical visually. Unless these little numbers next to the unit card are going to impede someone's ability to play I don't know what harm they could cause.

Plenty of other games have small control group indicators like what I am proposing. I don't think the reason they are not present in this game is because the developers thought not having them would greatly enhance the micromanagement component of the game, it is because the game is, in terms of design, a sub-par, half-baked RTS, but somehow every design oversight or omission still gets defended like it was deliberately designed that way for an optimal gameplay experience.

Indeed it probably isn't an intentional part of the gameplay experience yet I think after having come so far as we have now we are all used to the micro needed to DOW. I think it would make the game waaaay too easy and really add nothing gameplay wise for it to be changed at this point.

The harm is that they make microing of multiple same squad builds easier, such as 3x gm, 3x scouts, 4x tics, which thereby hurts those who currently can micro and keep track of them fine - which personally, I think is an important DOW skill - something that many of us higher level players have refined over the years since the control group indicators didn't exist. To add them would add what to gameplay? Nothing but to dumb down the micro demands on an already fairly micro unintensive game! And given that we've been going so long and that the players now are REALLY GOOD because they understand every bit of how the game works, I don't think lowering the ceiling for better micro giving better rewards is a good thing. But maybe that's just me as a 'pro' speaking

[Psycho]

Becuase one of the greatest weaknesses with getting 3 or 4 of the same squad is that you do start to lose track of which hotkey is for which squad. If this was the case it would be a lot easier to micromanage that 4x fire dragon blob.

Wouldn't it rest on the game balance itself to cover whether getting 4 of the same unit is viable or not, regardless of whether they're properly microed or not? Doesn't help that you used FDs as example with how much argument they generate.

[Torpid]

Becuase one of the greatest weaknesses with getting 3 or 4 of the same squad is that you do start to lose track of which hotkey is for which squad. If this was the case it would be a lot easier to micromanage that 4x fire dragon blob.

Wouldn't it rest on the game balance itself to cover whether getting 4 of the same unit is viable or not, regardless of whether they're properly microed or not? Doesn't help that you used FDs as example with how much argument they generate.

Yes, but I think in many ways with a lot of these units such as sluggas, hormagaunts, scouts and heretics their internally balancing does to a decent extent rest on this feature not being a thing.

[Psycho]

Yes, but I think in many ways with a lot of these units such as sluggas, hormagaunts, scouts and heretics their internally balancing does to a decent extent rest on this feature not being a thing.

But as you said, such 'balance' gets lesser the better you get, while it's a great obstacle for newer players. If a UI's shortcomings are what keep a unit balanced instead of the raw stats and indirect workings/synergy of the unit itself, then it's a dead giveaway that there's something wrong with the unit. If the only thing keeping these units from being OP is the inability of the player to use them to their fullest potential rather than the units and their counters being balanced around each other then it sounds more like a band-aid solution rather than balance at all.

I also can't see how incentivizing micro can be a bad thing if the alternative is either a-moving or just getting a unit you deem 'not the best for the situation' assuming you're in a situation where getting three or, in the rarest cases, four of the same unit is a legitimate strategy. Going triple of any unit should already leave you open for a proper counter due to having so many squads of a unit that gets countered by the same thing, along with the upkeep and reinforce costs involved. If the situation ends up being that the only thing stopping said tripling or quadrupling from steamrolling you is the other player's inability to pull it off rather than you countering his strategy somehow, then at best you're leaving the possibility that a player who theoretically has perfect skill in memorizing which unit is which hotkey gets an advantage so great that just saying its his skill giving him the advantage doesn't cut it, because the units are not even balanced around that level of skill, they're balanced for a lower level of skill.

The notion that a unit combination's balance rests on a player's assumed inability to use them to their fullest extent rather than another player's ability to properly counter them based on his faction roster just screams bad balance if it's balance at all. Not only that, you're, as I said in the earlier paragraph, making most players discard the micro option for a-move or just getting a build they wouldn't initially go for.

We don't even have confirmation that such thing can be added in the game in the first place, so I don't think this discussion is going to lead anywhere, really. Still, if a UI modification that just tells you which unit has which hotkey can alter the balance of the game so greatly, then something is awfully wrong. Hell, even Starcraft had it back when I played it.

[Toilailee]

This feature was in dow1 and I'm all for adding it. I often run around with 2 guardsmen/shootas or 2, 3, 4 or even 5 tacs and it can get a bit challenging to keep track of which squad follows which control group.

Also in dow1 it was possible to have for example scouts in 1, FC in 2, tacs in 3 and all of them in 4. In dow2 it's not possible to have any one unit bound to multiple command groups.

[Oddnerd]

I know that certain spams are too powerful right now, but I just think there have to be better ways to punish spammy builds than by keeping the game UI in the stone age.

[valar]

Yes, but I think in many ways with a lot of these units such as sluggas, hormagaunts, scouts and heretics their internally balancing does to a decent extent rest on this feature not being a thing.

But as you said, such 'balance' gets lesser the better you get, while it's a great obstacle for newer players. If a UI's shortcomings are what keep a unit balanced instead of the raw stats and indirect workings/synergy of the unit itself, then it's a dead giveaway that there's something wrong with the unit. If the only thing keeping these units from being OP is the inability of the player to use them to their fullest potential rather than the units and their counters being balanced around each other then it sounds more like a band-aid solution rather than balance at all.

I also can't see how incentivizing micro can be a bad thing if the alternative is either a-moving or just getting a unit you deem 'not the best for the situation' assuming you're in a situation where getting three or, in the rarest cases, four of the same unit is a legitimate strategy. Going triple of any unit should already leave you open for a proper counter due to having so many squads of a unit that gets countered by the same thing, along with the upkeep and reinforce costs involved. If the situation ends up being that the only thing stopping said tripling or quadrupling from steamrolling you is the other player's inability to pull it off rather than you countering his strategy somehow, then at best you're leaving the possibility that a player who theoretically has perfect skill in memorizing which unit is which hotkey gets an advantage so great that just saying its his skill giving him the advantage doesn't cut it, because the units are not even balanced around that level of skill, they're balanced for a lower level of skill.

The notion that a unit combination's balance rests on a player's assumed inability to use them to their fullest extent rather than another player's ability to properly counter them based on his faction roster just screams bad balance if it's balance at all. Not only that, you're, as I said in the earlier paragraph, making most players discard the micro option for a-move or just getting a build they wouldn't initially go for.

We don't even have confirmation that such thing can be added in the game in the first place, so I don't think this discussion is going to lead anywhere, really. Still, if a UI modification that just tells you which unit has which hotkey can alter the balance of the game so greatly, then something is awfully wrong. Hell, even Starcraft had it back when I played it.

Improving UI
many words are written here
balance is a lie.

a haiku. But seriously, I think there is nothing wrong with having interface limitations be a valid part of game design. Kind of related: Link.

[Psycho]

Improving UI
many words are written here
balance is a lie.

a haiku. But seriously, I think there is nothing wrong with having interface limitations be a valid part of game design. Kind of related: Link.

You'd have a point with that link if we were talking about exploits of the game engine like repairing sentinels/other vehicles while the guardsmen move away to have one single model stay close to it, or using the vehicle pathfinding against it to kill an enemy vehicle, or even using the elevation and ground target with artillery units like blastmasters or plasma devs to increase their range, among an infinity of other things that maybe aren't even discovered yet after all these years because DoW2 wasn't as popular as SCBW to have enough people look into it so closely.

And I fucked up earlier, it wasn't Starcraft that had it, it was Age of Empires.

[Cheekie Monkie]

Other random musings which would make DOW easier:

Enabling overwatch on tier upgrades

A glowing node on the minimap every time a unit is capping/decapping (we've all had units standing idle on a node)

A marker so you know where enemy grenades are going to land

Red arrows at the edge of your screen when an enemy unit is just out of your camera view, but is still in unit LOS (prevents flanking)

A detection range indicator so you know how far back you need to keep your infiltrators

The above suggestion a big buff to infiltrators? Well make it so you get a minimap ping when infiltrators are detected. Klaxons when the squad is packing grenades or is a stealthed slugga squad.

A hold fire option

On a scale of casual scum to heresy, how heretical?

[Torpid]

-

+1

[Cyris]

Other random musings which would make DOW easier:

I'll take:
control group numbers
Enabling overwatch on tier upgrades
A glowing node on the minimap every time a unit is capping/decapping (we've all had units standing idle on a node) (a circular filly bar on the map idons would prolly be best)
A hold fire option
Reverse on tanks

And leave behind:
A marker so you know where enemy grenades are going to land (though it would be neat to try this with a bunch of changes - ie: fast throw times and no fuse timer on landing. They would end up being more like nuke callins, which seems fine to me.)
Red arrows at the edge of your screen when an enemy unit is just out of your camera view, but is still in unit LOS (prevents flanking)
A detection range indicator so you know how far back you need to keep your infiltrators
The notion that convenient controls and feedback means bad game


I know you are being sarcastic, but these changes would make the game more accessible while still rewarding the superior player. The meme that hard to use controls and UI that provide minimal feedback are GOOD things needs to die. There are very reasonable improvements to feedback that can be made that do not compromise depth of play or importance of mastery.

[valar]

The meme that hard to use controls and UI that provide minimal feedback are GOOD things needs to die. There are very reasonable improvements to feedback that can be made that do not compromise depth of play or importance of mastery.

It's not a meme. Interface limitations can be desirable (proceed with caution). For example, one could say: Fog of war is an interface limitation.

Any such changes can in fact: compromise depth of play and importance of mastery.
But I agree it would be silly - to always want unresponsive controls and bad UI for no good reason.

[Oddnerd]

I don't agree with the comparison of the FOW to the interface elements mentioned in this thread. The FOW is not an interface element meant to assist the player, it is a core gameplay element.

Glad Cyris mentioned being able to overwatch tier upgrades; I brought that up in a thread a while back and the results were basically what I had predicted in my head. I wasn't there in the room when the game was being designed, but based on my impression of Relic, I am almost certain that all of the absent UI features mentioned by Cheekie Monkie are not absent because the design team looked at existing competitive RTS games and decided that omitting many of the basic indicators and feedback features would tax players' skill in a positive way and improve the challenge of the game... those features are absent because of sloppy corner-cutting design.

The challenge in this game should come in the form of making good choices about how to micro in combat, how to balance the need to win engagements with the need to maintain map control, and how to manage your limited resources. The interface should be there to assist you in that process, not generate meaningless, artificial impediments such as not indicating which visually indistinguishable squad on your screen is control group 2 or 3. I have yet to see an argument against this that seemed reasonable. While we are at it, why not remove units' auto-attack function? I want to be rewarded for my constant supervision of units and my ability to order attacks... why should noobs be able to close the skill gap by having their units fire at the highest priority target automatically? I bet if relic forgot to program auto-attack it would be defended too .

[Ace of Swords]

In no game you can auto build structures and tech and for good reason, if you get behind in tech because you forgot to buy the tier it's your own fault and it's about all the macro there is in dow2, it shouldn't be able to overwatch.

[Oddnerd]

Structures in most RTSs have to be placed on a spot designated by the player, so they can't be overwatched. As for tech upgrades, I don't see why they couldn't be put on overwatch - its not like having these basic functions automated strictly at the players discretion will eliminate the important skill barrier in a well-made game. The decision to purchase the particular upgrade or unit when resources becomes available still has to be made by the player, and that decision-making process is (imo) the most important part because it requires actual thinking. Whether or not the player diverts their attention to actually click the button the moment the resources become available doesn't test decision-making ability, it just tests muscle memory, which is typically acquired through grinding, not necessarily critical thinking.

I am against any forced automation of tactical/economic decisions which overrides the players decision making (ex - if in SC2 your SCVs occasionally built a structure in a random place and you could not override it), but overwatch/queuing up very simple functions that is done at the player's discretion does not take away from the important decision making part of the game.

In many older RTSs you could not shift+ click multiple move orders, queue up multiple buildings in tandem for a single worker, have your workers automatically begin harvesting (sc1), and in some cases units would not auto-engage enemy troops unless they were practically in melee with them... but as RTSs evolved these functions started to show up in newer games. Maybe there are people who yearn for the old days when any form of player-decided automation was unavailable, but chances are they are the "muh apm" types who think muscle memory and ingrained habit define a good player more than critical decision making.

[Psycho]

Other random musings which would make DOW easier:

I'd add changing the color of the squad model number count from red to white when there are missing models, and keeping the green when there are no models missing. Red on gray is an eyesore.

[Dullahan]

I'd want it too if it's possible at all. Too many times have I gotten caught up in the moment and forgotten which scout squad was which when kiting when I go double on them. Same with other double units that require constant micro.

This used to happen me until I started playing Coh2.

Then I remembered I could click on units.