I think that something like making the damage occur at the end of Drake's turn would make sense and might be a good enough nerf. IMO the main issue global damage powers have is that they defang the entire enemy force in a single action and then you can have your own units move in and finish them off, or at least weaken them to useless HP levels. Plus it interrupts all caps regardless of where your units are and forces repairs on any unit on a property which gives an even bigger boon to value. It isn't even a case similar to Andy where you have to make a decision of whether you want to take engagements and then heal up to get a bigger value bonus or to pop the power at the start of the turn to get the firepower bonus - you get both the firepower AND the value as soon as you activate and the value you get easily can snowball over the next couple of turns. Global damage powers are almost more powerful than something like Gold Rush in that regard, since they give the same immediate value on top of momentum in contested areas. And Gold Rush is clearly broken even though it gives less immediate presence compared to a global damage power. So I say that global damage powers do generally need some sort of nerf that doesn't let the COs that have them eat their cake and have it, too. Plus the wave coming in at the end of the turn works the same way a tsunami does in real life.
Out of topic here, I would like to propose that the modder try new mechanic like special unit for each officer which adds or replace common arsenals. Like Sami obtain commando unit and Eagle obtain assault fighter that shoot aircrafts with missile like interceptor and harrass infantry and light vehicles with autocannon like duster planes in DoR.
I think a buff for Sonja should be the ability to see and attack hidden units with her power. Specifically submarines. Giving her power some use in non fog of war fights
Mangs "It's important you change as little as possible otherwise it's not a rebalance" Also Mangs "I hate Drake's power so I'm completely changing it to something in no way similar."
@Seikijin Your comment has no relation to OP's. OP was pointing out how Mangs arbitrarily replaced tsunami, despite doing so going against what he said earlier about changing as little as possible. While a true statement in itself, the unviability of naval units is a separate topic and has nothing to do with needlessly replacing Drake's power with something entirely different, especially when it's as clear and egregious a nerf as Mangs' "alternative" is here.
@Seikijin how about a day to day that reduces the cost of drakes navel units. Combined with navy defense drake would win navel battles through attrition.
@@danielgreenwood793 Drake is already the best naval CO, why would you make him even more dependent on naval maps, making all naval games just drake fests?
...Watching this, I did realise something a bit odd. Why are the strongest units in Advance Wars 1 'Medium Tanks'? Were they planning on adding a unit called 'Heavy Tanks' or something, but didn't have enough time to put them in or something? And then maybe the Heavy Tanks became the Neotanks or Megatanks in later games. As for the video, you are entirely right with Sonja. Having no luck modifiers would suit her a lot better since she is someone who prefers to plan things out and not leave them to chance. So making it so her damage is set and doesn't deviate from the forecast would really suit her.
Actually if im not wrong in JP version they are called heavy tanks i dont know for whatever reason they changed them to medium tanks in west they also changed look of most of the CO's in west
Why you gotta do Drake so dirty like that. Man is a worse Greyfield now. Having specific D2D COs with general powers (Eagle, arguably Sensei) gives them versatility outside their specialism and makes Drake on a non-naval map, uh, relevant.
You'd think that after Mangs getting pounded by Eagle for 3 hours would make him nerf pretty hard but yet there he is, no changes... How much did Eagle pay you, Mangs?
Based on his funds in rivals actually pretty aloot i don't know how green earth is still standing even thought they literaly spend almost 1.1bilions of dollars in a 'friendly' battle ( rivals more like revenge)
The Drake rebalance goes against the spirit of what your re-balance set out to do: you removed his trademark and made him have the Max/Kanbei attack buff to Naval units, making him actually the worst CO of your new list in practical terms.
"if you want balance, take all the difference of the COs out and see what you get." You get Wargroove. I know you liked that game, but lack of difference among the COs, as the blatant inutility of the CO Powers (with a few exceptions) is exactly what you described.
Even then, Wargroove has some commanders who are often banned because of how broken their powers are. Nuru especially. Her Teleport Beam lets her deploy any unit she has the deployment property for adjacent to her. They nerfed this in a patch so she has to pay double for the unit, and it's STILL broken as hell. (Pulling an indirect out of your ass to snipe a key unit or the HQ is still stupid) Caesar's power is essentially a Reyson dance from Path of Radiance. Even a nerfed Lightning Strike still turned out to be too much for most commanders to handle. Tenri's power might not look like much, but being able to move any unit within a wide radius of her, including herself (the only exception is the enemy commander), is ridiculously versatile. It's mobility, it's an escape tool, or it can pull key units into death range.
@@BigKlingy Sincerely, those are very specific and maybe good in determined situations, but if are winning, they won't make you win much faster, and if you are losing they won't turn the game around. Mercia has the best power since the area is big and a renewed frontline can win you a match, but Nuru, yeah, fine, you can cause big damage to HQ, but if your commander is so close to the enemy HQ, you're probably about to win anyway. But, even so, they aren't broken, fighting with a commander without groove would probably just be mildly annoyed by those, but not that much. In Advance Wars when the enemy pops out the Super Power, you pay attention, because the damage gonna be great, in Wargroove, you just... Meh... I mean, Big Bad Boy Valder calls a new skeleton... Meh... Cesar renews the actions of 2 units (yep, 2 because it gonna be very rarely you gonna be able to position your guys in the front line in the formation for him to do it 3 or 4), your best bet is to use indirect to attack at the same turn, in exchange for his attack. Meh,,, maybe that little stuff may make a difference between similar level high skilled players, but... Give me advance wars COs any day.
@@inarencommander4663 I seriously disagree, in very specific situations, he can cause more damage than Meteor Strike, sure, but what are the chances you get your enemy to align their troops like that. Most of the time, if you use that thing, you run a straight line into the enemy ground, get surrounded, and die, same goes for Ragna Pseudo Meteor Strike, it must get her on enemy-controlled ground where she will probably be surrounded and die.
I feel like Tsunami is really the battleground for this rework's discussion, as it's justification boils down to just "I don't like it" creating a rift between players feeling the same way and players liking it/thinking it's fine. I personally disagree with this change as I feel it's just sidestepping trying to balance global damage powers and changing Tsunami here has a lot of implications for changing other global damage powers in the upcoming games. The change just makes the power less interesting as it is one of a kind in AW1 if we're not counting meteor strike and the new power would just exchange it with something we have seen a lot already. It's also a nerf to an actually very favorable matchup for Andy, who being a jack of all traits CO doesn't have much interesting stuff going for him. But I do agree with not taking situational factors into account. Sonja being weaker in non-fow maps makes sense as well Sami being stronger on maps that favor infantry or mechs. The map and ruleset should always impact CO selection, so I'm glad this video didn't try to overbalance and give every CO something outside of their specialty.
Great changes overall. I have mixed feelings about the removal of Tsunami: I agree that global damage is not the best mechanic for advance wars, but I also think it fits Drake well thematically. He is basically designed to wear down his opponent (weather the storm so to speak.) I can't deny I hate being on the receiving end of it though...
I agree with pretty much every buffs and nerfs you did, aside from Sturm, now he feels like a Grimm copycat, so he's just bad. I agree with the +30% firepower and -20% defense, since I always had the headcanon that he treats his own units poorly, and forces them to fight like there's no tomorrow. However, I feel like he should keep that one cost movement, which yes, is very strong, but as you said countless times, defense matters A LOT, even more than firepower, and I feel like without giving him the edge to being able to at least go through terrain swiftly, he would get his ass handed to him by multiple COs. With the 1 cost movement, Sturm certanly seems scary, but it's not like he can abuse that and just storm you without a care in the world since his units are made of foil paper and so any not planned, mindless push from him can easily be shut down as long as you don't panic, much like Grimm. just my two cents through, I pretty much agree with everything else.
@@Mangs1337 It really is, but I feel like without it, he's just a meh CO, through I don't really blame you for being so hard on him, he's just hard to balance imo.
I dislike your changes to drake. His power is my favorite part about him. I love the worldwide effect powers like his and hawke's, and I have grown to love candy as well for her urban blight. That is thanks to you by the way, I never thought to use her in that manner until you mentioned it in your rankings video.
@@Mangs1337 but haven't you ranked both Hawke and drake at B in your last videos? Is that overpowered? I know you have changed your mind on drake because his powers cost is so low, but Hawke is one of the most balanced cos in the game in my opinion.
@@shelbyramin1376 Honestly, considering Eagle wasn't hit NEARLY as hard. Id say he has a potentially more busted power than Drake by far, even if it does take some skill to use. Drake with a busted power is still at C. Should've made his general troops more generally useful.
I've had 1 major philosophy on balance; Buffs over nerfs. Bringing lower powered characters in games to be able to compete with the broken ones seems much more fun, and only should you rarely nerf. Also another buff for Andy without making him too different: Give him a d2d where he gets reduced cost for repairs. I don't know an exact percentage but a small price reduction on repairs would fit his whole mechanic personality since he would personally fix things himself. Just a thought
Agree in general. Nerfs do tend to take the personality and fun out of the differences but AWDS can show the downside of going too far with 'buff everthing'. For AW1 though, its not in that state yet so you can save the nerfs for only the atrociously overpowered, like Max. The rest can be balanced by well thought out buffs.
I absolutely despise this mindset. Context matters, and you look at things on a case by case basis. Nerfs are absolutely sometimes called for and may be far more appropriate than the opposing buff, in which case the resulting overall game may be a far more fun and entertaining experience for far more people than deciding to implement buffs instead would. Power creep is not inherently fun by any means.
While I agree that it is usually the more fun way, game design doesn't always go that way: sometimes things just are very difficult to balance 'up to level' and is more work which can cause more oversights, overshoots or undershoots. There is also possibility of something have a critical mass, which just can't be crossed, or something being bad for health of game in general - too easy for the effect, or just being unfun to deal with. That being said, I don't think AW1 is suffering from such issue as it is pretty low-power game for most part (outside of Max), at least compared to later entries. Although that might be part of the appeal at times.
I'd give Andy +1 HP when repairing on properties, but with half the cost to help emphasize his repairing genius. Hyper Repair would also heal 3 HP instead of 2, because 2 HP doesn't feel like it has such a huge impact on the game as it should. Edit: Repairing on properties would still be a hard choice, but with my new Andy, it might be worth getting your unit to a nearby property because he would heal 3 HP at the cost of 1.5HP, and 3 HP can be just the oomph you need to finish off an enemy. In addition, if would make his infantry able to do more efficient capturing after they took a city in case they were damaged
Agreed on this change, I've seen it suggested a few times and it makes the most thematic sense for him, without being too strong. Also I think you meant to say "emphasize" not empathize.
This is why the "Pareto Principle" exists. You can't fix everything, and trying to fix everything is impossible. So instead, you focus on the biggest problems for the largest results.
I feel like Drake's whole shtick is to go for the long con and holding on long enough to whittle down your opponent with tsumanis until you can go for that final push. I like to see him be a defensive CO with the old tsunami
Interesting thought exercise. With Drake in particular I think a scope error can be argued. Basically, you can balance the CO's in a local to themselves scope or globally on a player options scope. The thing about the base balance of AW is that it *might* be totally fine for some S rank and D rank COs to exist. As the player has the option to choose who they are playing. Instead what may be important is how many options the player has and how meaningful those options are. Grit is a key example as he pairs with a *player* approach of using indirects. Even if Grit was weak he may be the best fit for a specific player's playstyle. Mang's approach to Drake may be adjusting the local Drake scope at the cost of removing a global player option. Base Drake is the only way a player gets a CO power like that. Drake's day to day is so specific to naval and air that he's almost an average no day 2 day CO. No day 2 day is a player option that some players would appreciate. They can choose heal, enemy dmg, or snow. By removing Tsunami you totally remove an option on the player scope. This could still easily work out locally for Drake as a CO. I'm not going to bother making my own hard judgement on a thought exercise. I will say that Drake's CO power has one particular interaction that I have not seen Mangs highlight. Going back to watch his Wargroove campaign, I've seen Mangs miss this point there too. (where early campaign he undervalues "sacrificing" a swordsman to do 10% to a CO) Attacking a unit that has some damage on it is much safer then one at 100%. It can sometimes mean significantly reduced counter attack damage and domino into better outcomes over several turns. Two infantry attacking each other over the course of several turns is a good example.
Mangs, I love your attention to Drake, and I agree that Tsunami is OP 1 and I main Drake! However… Giving Drake a firepower boost seems a bit too easy. Boats cost so much, and they have to be in position. Eagle is the air CO and gets to move twice - Why not let Drake work like him? Exchange the 20% firepower boost for the ability to allow Drake to move and shoot his Battleships for 1 turn? He won’t have that many ships due to their high cost, but the ones he does have will be incredibly solid for that one turn!
True balance isn't impossible, It's just that a truly balanced game wouldn't be very fun or interesting. Think about it this way. Hypothetical: I'm making a FPS game and I want all the guns to be balanced, but I want to have different guns. The first gun I'm going to design is an Kalashnikov. I design the gun to have a slower fire rate, but more damage per bullet. Then I'm going to design a FAMAS. It will have lower damage but have a faster fire rate. Then all I have to do from there is make the DPS between the two guns the same. It's technically 100% balanced even though one gun might shine over the other a little in certain scenarios. Does that sound like a very fun game? even though the stats of the 2 guns are somewhat different they're basically the same gun. A good example of a perfectly balanced game is the very first Street Fighter. There is Ryu and there is Ken, but they have the same exact moves and the same exact damage values leading to the game being a snooze fest. Most people when they call something "unbalanced" actually just want it to be more in line with the "power level" of other weapons/ equipment/characters because actual balance would look some thing like this. Hypothetical 2: Character one gets 10% more power but 10% less defense. Character 2 gets 10% less power but gains 10% more defense. Character three gets 10% more defense but has 1 less vision range. Character 4 gets 10% more damage but has 1 less vision range, etc. In conclusion, no one actually wants a balanced game. Everyone just want's everything to be around the same general, to steal from DBZ, power level. No one wants to have to deal with the bs of something's power level being "over 9000!" but everyone at the same time wants to feel powerful. Personally for me I like to use the weaker items/ options in a game and just get crazy skilled with it because it makes me feel more powerful than if I were to use the strong item/ option. I mean hell I really like playing Sonja and it's not exactly like she's high up on any Advance Wars tier list but she's fun to play and it feels really good when to get the perfect Counter Break that swings the match in your favor. That and annoying the hell out of people because they don't know how much HP your units have is fun. I wonder what Grimm Guy's opinion would be on this actually. Well anyways great video as always Mangs!
Nice balance, really good overall. here is what I would do to improve based on your new version : kanbei losing 10% is a lot on day-to-day so I would in fact buff his morale boost defense to 40%. while he may have his morale boost more often, he will get less defense in average compared to the original verion drake I don't think a rework is needed, sure it's annoying but there is a way to improve it. I would make his tsunami will deal 1 damage to any unit on sea/reef/shoal/river and it's adjacent tile. that way it will still deal global damage but there is a way to prevent it. I would also reduce the cost to 30K. sturm I think 30% firepower and -20% is too weak on a day-to-day basic (we all know with grimm), making it 20% firepower and -10% defense seems fair
In the AWBW server they have a balancing discussion about COs every so often, where they give ideas on how to bring them all to Tier 1, but I've always wondered how it'd be if they were all rebalanced to be Tier 0. It'd be hilariously broken for some reason.
The higher the tier, the more unique and diverse they have to be(giving every CO the same buff is no buff at all), the harder it is to keep them balanced. I am not saying it wouldn't be fun, but it would be a lot of careful tweaking and extra complexity, the latter part making things harder.
Andy has hyper upgrade from the second game as his only ability Eagle's lightning strike is 30,000 points and has no offensive penalty Sonya's units are always hidden in fog unless adjacent to an enemy Drake and Olaf have rain and snow 100% of the time, unless facing each other. Sami's infantry and mechs always have +1 movement, or she gets a discount on transports instead Nell has 10% minimum good luck, bumped up to 20% on her CO power Grit's indirects can counterattack
@Samuel Duff No, all luck based COs will have a permanent luck boost to minimum firepower (like, +20 to +70 for Nell or something) and also a big increase in the threshold for their max luck power
The issue I have with doing huge rebalances with Cos is that some of them just get robbed of their identity. Being able to move over terrain is basically Sturms calling card,so taking that away just immediately makes him less special imo.
He still gets to do that in the campaign. However if you want him to be rebalanced for versus mode, you cannot let him have that ability. It's either that or ban him from multiplayer.
also no it really ISNT his identity, his identity is the big freaking meteor strike, being able to move through terrain doesnt have anyhing to do with his character OR having that CO Power, its just an extra tagged on day to day
@@whywasmyrealnamehere Absolutely has something to do with his identity. He is an alien overlord who doesnt care about our planet or what terrain might be placed upon it. He is obviously a lot more enhanced technological wise than we are and so it makes sense that he could mow through trees and mountains like its nothing.
@@Shazam1998 lol so not caring about terrain makes you invulerable to it slowing you down? makes no sense, and in AW1 there was no real indication of him being alien like, all you knew was he wore a mask could clone CO's and summoned meteors somehow. Theres nothing about him that indicates that he can somehow move through terrain easier
I think the Kanbei should have his attack nerfed rather than his defense. One of the things that makes Kanbei good is that his units don't die and he can accumulate them over the course of a match to compensate for his higher deployment cost.
Except that’s literally what mangs said he wants to avoid? Like, explicitly that’s exactly what he said he wanted to make harder to do. You have to work for your death push, you don’t just get it for the opponent trying to take trades
@@yoshifan2334 sure, but I still feel like this is what makes Kanbei unique edit: also, I should clarify that I'm not super experienced with Advance Wars so take my opinion with a grain a salt
Kanbei is a buffoon, though, who rushes into battle without strategy or care for consequences. It would be out of character for his units to be defensive walls.
I'd say I agree. 10% defense buff is basically worthless. Look at Von Bolt in AWDS. You barely know he has it. The defense must stay, otherwise he's paying too much for units that still die just as easily as anyone else's, but he has 20% less of them to use. And as he points out, Kanbei's CO power is overpriced and unremarkable, and I think that's intended to keep him in check. Eagle for the same price gets a freakin second turn.
Just some ideas: Sturm moves through everything, but costs a ton of extra fuel for balance when he exercises that privilege. For the meteor, consider a rework to the AI of that event to be more predictable and possibly to increase the chance it hits his own men . For example, make it so he can only call it down on one of his units and rely on the splash to damage the enemy. Sturm seems like the kind of guy to rely on sacrificing his own men rather than relying on chance. Have Drake's deluge sap a small percentage of fuel from the enemy while you're at it, no CO makes use of that mechanic so it's ripe design space (in AW1). I hope your changes find their way into a ROM.
Targeting meteor on your own men could pair well with splash damage zones. Rather than flat 3 damage, it could do 4 in the center, then 3 damage on the 4 squares around it, the next ring be 2 damage and the outside do 1. What a fun exercise.
I like your way of balancing things. Keep what makes that character special, even if it is considred too strong but put a different kind of nerf on that CO. And exploring new mechanics is always fun to see.
@@DaRoblin That wouldn't make things much better. If you could choose the unit on you own, that would end in either spamming cheap units to keep the enemy away from them or sending in a hidden kamikaze recon.
@@projectpitchfork860 Your arguments are true but only if Sturm fills up his meter quickly. If it still fills up slowly, then the guy's changes are all right, I think
The only problem with that is then COs who have special abilities to hard counter other COs basically boot them from the meta. Andy would hard counter Drake, for example.
@@GreyWolfLeaderTW But Drake could also be seen as a Hard Counter for Andy. Sure, Drake's CO power isn't doing anything in the grand scheme of things, but neither is Andy's. They cancel each other out.
if we want to make naval units relevant we need economy in sea, a sea property which gives 1000 gold and a ship that can capture it, then there will be a reason to fight over naval. Battle ships are too little of a reward
You can have wildly asymmetric games have balance. Take Fury of Dracula for instance. It’s unimaginably asymmetric and yet has a win rate between factions on the same level as the win rates in chess.
So, opinions on your balancing take ! -Andy: He really should just have a 50% d2d repair reduction cost or +1 repairs at normal cost. Double dipping his whole mechanic gimmick makes him stand out as a CO while keeping him average, because it feels weird to be "the average balance guy" and then having a cheaper than average power. -Olaf: Since he doesn't have d2d, making him also get the random weather boost can make for a really stupid Olaf vs Drake matchup. and that would be hilarious. -Kanbei: Defense is the whole gimmick of Kanbei... nerfing that really changes his playstyle, and it would ruin his CO identity. nerfing his prices to 25% should really add up to being nasty without making him feel less Kanbei. -Drake: Overhauling Tsunami doesn't feel good at all. Buffing Naval units by reducing their cost 20%, and then giving Drake a d2d 10% reduction to Naval units has been the most common buff I've seen, and I really agree with it. -Sturm: Buff him to +30/-10%. I agree no movement penalty must go for Multiplayer, but -20% defense is just really, really bad in competitive, and it may overnerf him.
The balancing factor I once decided for kanbei was that he gains half the defense from terrain, which fun fact, never results in him having less defense than a normal co. Using the logic that he has great tactics and military expertise on even ground, but fights so honorably that he doesn't know how to properly utilize unfair advantages. This way he keeps that massive defense boost, but doesn't get those immortal setups that genuinely aren't fun to fight
I never cease to be surprised how you hate Sami for capturing faster. God, Mangs, this is what she's made for. Also sturm isn't meant to be fair, I wouldn't touch him, although I agree he doesn't suit the defensive role they gave him on versus mode. Hes supposed to be the exmachina, so let it (and ban him from competitive matches instead). So beside the sturm and sami (I wouldn't touch them) I agree with anything else on the video.
No. Kanbei works differently. His co power sets his universal damage dealt to 140% and his damage taken to 70%. It is actually not a firepower and defense increase :)
@@Mangs1337 oh, very interesting! Does that mean he's the only CO with a day to day power affecting its universal multipliers (because all of his troops have the same buff) or is it the case for every CO's day to day power?
I'll throw my hat in the ring. I agree with Mangs on some points but I think there are some other potentially interesting avenues to go about balancing here. ORANGE STAR COs Andy: 'Balanced CO' +Pays 50% less on base repairs than other COs +Hyper Repair cost lowered to 25,000 Max: 'Direct Combat Specialist' -Direct firepower buff decreased to 130% -Max Force cost increased to 35,000 from 30,000 -Max Force only applies movement to attack units Sami: 'Infantry & Capture Specialist' -Capture rate bonus decreased from 50% to 30% (Agree with Mangs here) Nell: 'Roll the Dice CO' (I think this CO can go either way. I think Nell is fine as is, but I could see the decrease in luck value in exchange for CO power charge working fine as well) -No Changes BLUE MOON COs Olaf: 'Snow CO' +Gains day to day ability of +20% unit defense in snow (Going with the idea of bogging down the battlefield and digging in) +Blizzard cost decreased to 25,000 Grit: 'Indirect Combat Specialist' -No Changes YELLOW COMET COs Kanbei: 'Elite Forces Specialist' -No Changes Sonja: 'Fog of War Specialist' +/- Has no good luck. Bad luck value removed + Enhanced Vision now halves property defense bonuses (Has intel on where units are in cities/factories/etc) GREEN EARTH COs Eagle: 'Air Unit Specialist' -No changes Drake: 'Naval Unit Specialist' (With Drake, I like the idea of exploring his 'pirate' history a little more, so his balancing attempts to reflect that more. I do think Drake is sort of difficult to balance because he's specialized in the most expensive yet challenging to use units, and his air units are so terrible. ) +Added day to day ability of all naval units being 20% cheaper due to his plundered wealth +All naval units gain +10% firepower -Decreased 120% naval unit defense to base 100% defense BLACK HOLE CO Sturm: '???' (I'm not too much of a fan of the changes Mangs proposed, mostly because of the heavy defense penalty.) +/- All units have 110% firepower and defense +/- Maintains his unit's movement powers, but due to being unfamiliar with Earth's climate treats rain as snow, and suffers the same effects of snow as every CO +Meteor Strike damage buffed to 5 damage per unit -Meteor Strike cost nerfed from 50,000 to 60,000
I agree with you on some of these, and disagree on some others. -Andy still sucks, and so does his power. Give it +3HP instead of +2, in addition to the reduced cost. One third of your damaged funds returning is far more considerable than one fifth, and if he can do that more often it would encourage his opponent to focus down his injured units, lest they return back at respectable levels. -I feel like Sami's capture game is still entirely too strong. In practice, +30% capture rate is still nearly as strong as +50%, and if she pops double time her caps are still almost entirely unstoppable. Making her capture rate +20% instead would make it easier to stop her, even when she pops double time, as long as you focus her down, cuz at 30% it's still rather hopeless. -Max's changes were pretty good. -Dunno if Nell required changes, but I've never seen her in action so I'll take your word for it. -Olaf's one defining gimmick just isn't enough, really. Just a little less movement for the enemy once in a while, admittedly is kinda annoying, leaves much to be desired when compared to the competition. There's two ways you can take Olaf here: offensive or defensive. If you want an Offensive Olaf, give his units +10% in firepower and defense, so his blizzard will let him make a push while his opponents are no longer able to run. If you want Defensive, you could give Blizzard its AW3 effect on top of the reduced movement, letting it sap fuel or supplies, thus making Olaf try to stall his opponents and waste their income fixing the damages his Blizzard caused. -Grit faces a huge penalty for a benefit that's far more "annoying" than it is "helpful". +1 range on his indirects is nice and all, but the bulk of his army is still directs, he needs vision to fire on someone in the first place. Snipe Attack doesn't need a change, but +10% firepower on his indirects would go a long way in making him feel less "Ugh, this again" to "Oh god, this again". -I do like Kanbei's change to his power, making him feel more interesting to play since you get to power up and kick some ass more often. Though I'm not sure you thought about his defensive change much in conjunction, Kanbei's design is just too strange to touch without seeing the effects firsthand. -One more buff I feel like Sonja would like is hiding her HP bar even in animations. I feel like the ability to see her HP bar in animations sort of invalidates one of the most unique things she had going for her, so I think doubling down on that would make her more separated from the rest of the cast. -Eagle is my boy. -You said you didn't want to drastically change CO's, but then you just dumped on Drake's CO power, making it go from unique and dangerous to really bog standard and "shrug" worthy. I'd say change back Tsunami. Keep the unreduced vision in the rain, cuz the fact rain hurts him at all makes no sense, and then give his day to day a -10% to ship costs, making him a naval juggernaut. Ships don't even need extra firepower, they hit hard enough. He just needs to be able to make the damn things. -Sturm's changes feel interesting. It makes him feel more dangerous and unpredictable, and I love it.
"You said you didn't want to drastically change CO's, but then you just dumped on Drake's CO power, making it go from unique and dangerous to really bog standard and "shrug" worthy. I'd say change back Tsunami. Keep the unreduced vision in the rain, cuz the fact rain hurts him at all makes no sense, and then give his day to day a -10% to ship costs, making him a naval juggernaut. Ships don't even need extra firepower, they hit hard enough. He just needs to be able to make the damn things." Don't worry. He's going back on that. He realized on second thought the changes were too harsh.
hey jo Mangs! good job. i used to worked in balancing some other older strategy game and realy can tell that you are realy mindfull with your changes. i totally agree with most of your changes. i also like the idea with Drakes new power. Only thing i thought about it, is it beeing the same price olafs. Sure, snow is more of a movement penelty. but Rain also reduces drakes enemys vision. In Fact i also like that Drakes ship also get a firepower bonus, but maybe with all that in mind his power should cost a lil' more then Olafs. Especialy when we, as you said play him on a map that forces you to build ships. Or maybe we also get a naval-price-rework so they aren't something you only build when you are forced into it.
Like ranking the COs, you're probably going to want to make this for the entire series rather than just the first 2 games. I mean, it's a solid idea that is going to have president (and I'd certainly watch you try to make Caulder "balanced").
tbh just making sea units cheaper is probably enough, and maybe make Cruisers able to fire on adjacent land units akin to Anti-Airs, it wouldn't be a massive buff but apparently there is an animation for it in AW2 if you cheat to do it.
I don't think a 20% FP boost during your revised CO Power would be a meaningful change considering Battleships and Cruisers are powerful enough against Land and Sub/Air units respectively, but I'd have made his naval units cheaper (~25-30% cheaper).
I personally would give andy some kind of day-to-day resupply and repair cost down or enhancement, like repairing 3hp instead of 2 (tho that could be quite op) or maybe making his repairs cost 10% less funds, which would not really be too consequential, but would play in his gimmick and make repairs at least a tad more worth it/interesting.
Wait eagle use lignting drive in the demo of AW Reboot camp at 13:04 , does that mean he gets his Advance Wars Dual Strike power and superpower? Or maybe he gets only lighning drive when you play the AW 1 storyline and he gets his superpower with the AW2 story.
A small firepower boost to Drake's naval ships is terrible. The Global Damage is Drake's main balancing factor to how terrible naval units are. Having a CO power that only works on Naval units is a horrific nerf, IMHO.
I think sturm should be +20A -30D but retaining the movement since its his whole deal. You get haste at the cost of being fragile, a rushed plan, just like sturm in the first game.
I disagree with almost all of your changes. I’ve been playing advance wars for as long as you. Max for example is basically terrible in Adv Wars 2, which is basically your status change minus the super power. 30% is better. Personally, I think you are letting Sami’s annoyance get the better of you. I agree that there are some balancing issues, but you are over doing it some what.
With Olaf, I would also have added the same thing Drake has, where there is a slightly higher chance for it to snow when he is your commander. Given his relationship with Nell, it makes sense to me he'd have some kind of luck-based ability as well.
i disagree that tsunami is bad game design jsut like sonja seeing in hiding places, he becomes strong in some places. its more frustrating to paly against, but not that strong
Here is my list. Andy: half repair costs and hyper repair repairs 3 HP. Max: firepower to 120% Sami: only APC's +1 movement Nell: power more expensive Olaf: 120% firepower in snow Grit: CO power gives +1 range. Indirects 115% firepower Kanbei: 115% def Sonja: no luck Eagle: transport units can't move twice Drake: +20% firepower when it rains. Ships are 120/120 Sturm: 85/115
The joke about the AWBW Drake teaching Mangs to hate global damage Powers (and Drake specifically) has already been made a few times, so skipping right to the "thoughts on Deluge." You mention that Drake's balance relies upon the affordability of naval units, and then completely shrug your own statement off, remove his basically sole redeeming quality, and replace it with a damage buff on units that are still so prohibitively expensive that they'll never realistically see use to begin with. If getting rid of Tsnu-snu-nami is such an imperative, its replacement should at the minimum address and alleviate why Drake's specialization is considered to be so weak. Instead of Tsunami or "Deluge," give him something called "Flood Season" or "Flash Flood," which for one turn causes rain and makes all naval units around 25% cheaper to make for Drake. If "vision unaffected by rain" isn't made part of his d2d, it should also be incorporated into this power. A 21k battleship is a substantial discount to its heavily overvalued stock price of 28k, while still leaving it as a pretty expensive commitment so as not to break the economy side of things. Still not a perfect solution imo, but for an almost-immune-to-tanks, longer-range, more situational Water-Rocket, 6k more compared to Rockets (15k) isn't that unreasonable. And again, the discount only lasts 1 turn, so he isn't going to be rocking a free 25% larger navy at all times on maps where ships are *necessary:* only that it's a not-entirely unviable option when they *aren't.* To further contextualize this, for one turn: • Landers would cost 9,000, down from 12,000 • Cruisers would cost 13,500, down from 18,000 • Subs would cost 15,000, down from 20,000 • Battleships would cost 21,000, down from 28,000 (frankly, I think the prices of naval units in general should be decreased around 10-30% across the board, but if Drake's power is to make shamelessly overpriced units temporarily affordable, so be it. At least it's unique to him.)
Custom Co idea #10: Sham, the Shove master Infantry and Mechs can shove units one space provided those units can traverse that terrain. Infantry can only shove "lighter" vehicles (footsoldiers, recons, A-Air, tanks, artillary, APCs), while mechs can shove "medium" Vehicles (Md. Tank, Rockets, Missiles, and Landers). 3 stars: Smite: Infantry can now shove anything mechs can and mechs can shove Neotanks, Piperunners, and non-battleship docked naval units [not counting submerged subs]) or smite units they could already shove (2 spaces instead of 1) 7 stars: Determination: Pulls a Flak and Smite except they can now shove stuff through terrain that they can't normally move through He's part of the third army, the neutralists (name pending).
I know this is a one year old video, but with Advance Wars being on people's minds lately (especially with the direct tomorrow), I thought I might chip in with my own opinion on this video: I don't agree with your choice of not changing Grit. Not because I believe he's too weak or strong without changes, but because having such a weak day-to-day and such a strong and cheap CO power feels to me like it doesn't match how the other COs are balanced. -20% firepower even on infantry is a lot, and only for +1 range on indirects? Yes, having more range is incredibly strong, but the tradeoff is too much, especially with how much worse it would be for Grit on small maps where he likely wouldn't be able to contest any infantry fights at all without support from indirects. Meanwhile, an extra +2 range on his indirects with his power, and +65% firepower is a LOT. Give grit the chance to have a good number of indirects and vision, either in a recon or infantry on a mountain, and chances are whatever he's attacking won't live, unless it's a medium tank on a city. Even then, it would take enough damage where its effectiveness would be greatly reduced and a second shot would likely finish it off. I think it would be much better to make Grit's day to day be much closer to his AW2 version, -10% firepower instead of -20% and only to direct units, not infantry or mechs. To balance this his CO power would need to be weakened a lot, either a hefty firepower reduction like to 25-30% instead of 65% or, to keep the ability to demolish armies with a few well-placed indirects, a price increase, something like 40,000. I know this goes against that spirit of "It if ain't broke don't change it", and balance wise Grit ain't broke, but I do think he is broke in the way that how he plays is too different on a fundamental level to other COs. A CO should be strong enough to stand on their own two feet with their day-to-day, with their CO power having the potential to turn the game around if played well. Grit doesn't fit that first criteria to me.
If I have the hot take to nerf Drake's Tsunami, it would probably be this: Let him keep the Tsunami, however his global damage will now tally to the affected CO meter, meaning they will now generate their power instead of not getting it under the effect of Tsunami. A 1 HP unit will not die, but the cost loss effect is still active, still giving the affected unit to generate power to the CO. My 'overkill' nerf is that Drake's Tsunami dealing global damage will now add more power based on the enemy unit's based cost by +0.10%. Okay, this will be confusing and I will look stupid after this, but if you know what I mean. Take a cost of an infantry. It costs 1000 as normal ten HP on infantry, that means every 1 unit of HP is cost that amount. For this case of Infantry, its 100 (not 1000). If Drake popped his Tsunami, it will deal 1 HP of damage, but the value it did will be 200 instead, thus will generate the CO meter faster. This is multiplied by two with SCOP. I'll... Work on this tomorrow or some day. Edit 2: Okay so like, Drake's Global damage will make enemies generate the opposing CO's power meter. This is what I have been trying to say but tired brain just died last week.
A suggestion to adjust Kanbei's defense better: Gameplay-wise, players need to rely on Kanbei's defense to hold chokepoints. Story-wise, Kanbei rushes in without thinking, and leaves his defenses open. Therefore, I propose to adjust the defense of Kanbei's direct-combat and transport units inversely with the speed of their last movement: Kanbei unit did not move: +25% defense Kanbei unit moved a little: +20% defense Kanbei unit moved moderately: +15% defense Kanbei unit moved a lot: +10% defense. That way, Kanbei players can defend an existing chokepoint well, but cannot too easily secure a new area. (This is also why his ground indirects don't get more than +10% defense bonus; otherwise, virtually any chokepoint will go to Kanbei. I'm undecided on battleships.) (Also, that one Advance Campaign mission is made a little easier: if Kanbei's planes abuse Fog of War and rush your troops, they'll be a little more vulnerable.)
You'd have to ignore character concept by A LOT to create a scenario where 50/50 win rate is the norm. It's impossible imo. Just have NO COs- that would be the solution. Even when a CO would virtually have a lower winrate, there would be certain players and contexts where the "lower winrate" or "lower advantage" can turn into a strategic and/or tactical advantage. For example, in chess, there are certain people, whether by luck, habit, or skill, who have a knack for playing well with black, despite white supposedly having a first-move advantage. It's like when a fighter thinks they have the upper hand, but they're being played by the other setting up for a counter. Or how an old, beat-up Toyota Corolla can beat a Mazda RX-7 given the right race track. Perceived weaknesses can be real strengths. That being said, who am I to talk? LOL Last time I played Advanced Wars was like a decade ago- and am just happy that they have made the game for Switch.
Actual I think your Drake chances would make Drake unplayable without ships. If you want to removes global damage I think the best way would to buff his fuel drain in the other games. (also 1 damage is not that severe if we consider his d2d buffes the weakest unit in the game) So if I would rebalance Drake planning to remove his global damage I would make his cop still cut away 50% fuel. But would make his Scop cut away 75% fuel. Also would make it he not gets a vision debuff in rain. Also you just made Sturm -> Grimm with a 3 hp meteor strike^^
Maybe Drake could have 10-20% cheeper Naval units to make them a bit more relevant (still keep his defense buff, but maybe reduce it to one star). I think this would be totally broken on maps with a lot of naval, but could be helpfully more land based maps (which a lot of multiplayer is) without breaking the game too much. Navy will still be pretty expensive for him, but it won’t be as laughable. Another idea could be to give Drake flat buffs to the range and strength of Battleships and cruisers. Make the Battleships rockets of the sea and make cruisers actually good Anti-air. I was thinking +20% Firepower on cruisers and +10% firepower and +1 range on Battleships.
Andy = APC heals 1hp, City heals 3hp Sami = Infantry and Mechs can do Indirect attack if they dont move but does 70% Atk power. APCs can carry 2 Infantry and Mechs Max = Indirects can do Melee but does 50% Atk power. Keep the +2 Move when using Super Power Jess = APCs can do indirect attack provided it has infantry or mech in it
I agree with most of your suggestions but the only gripes I have are with Max & Sonja. I feel like AW2 version of Max works because they balanced him with his SCOP in mind, so just giving him 20% d2d feels kinda weak IMO when all you have is a COP to work with that puts him back at his old D2D with some movement. I do agree he still needs a massive nerf, but I guess it's hard to gauge how the values should look without seeing it in play against other COs. Also, I feel like giving Sonja no-luck kind of works against her gimmick of not being able to see her unit HP, because you'll be able to much more reliably tell how much HP a unit has when it doesn't have a luck value. I think having a normal luck value on Sonja, all else the same, would be just fine personally. I have way less experience playing AW1 though so my impressions might be a bit off in that sense.
Ive played so much advance wars and my favorite multiplayer is exactly days of ruin with no COs. But what you do here is just... yikes. "Make them all 25k and take away the unique stuff like drakes global damage" XD They should just include no CO option like days of ruin and keep the variety. Id rather buff andy by making his co power heal for +3 instead. Cheaper cost just loses variety by having sami no longer with the cheapest power
I'm honestly not ok with Sami's change. I think AW2 did a great rework by removing all defenses and making her infantry not viable anymore as just the big line to hold while you rain on the enemy. On average your Infantry units are gonne get interrupted by 3-5 damage while capping. This means removing that % gives the enemy the second strike chance and makes it an interrupt. You basically denied AW1 Sami's entire gimmick. Also yes, I agree with everyone else Drake was too drastic. I would make so Tsunami makes it rain, and maybe a naval discount to fix the one actual problem with him? Battleships become literally more viable by a margin of 10% every 1k they cost less after all.
i feel like Drake's naval units should have a slight discount (maybe 20%) so he can actually use a decent chunk of them and reliably win naval battles. the individual CO unit cost mechanic already exists with Kanbei (and Collin/Hachi in AW2) so it wouldn't require a brand new system or anything. It's tricky to make a CO who focuses on such a niche group of units work (which is why Drake is more known for his tsunami than his D2D powers) but i think giving Drake the capacity to actually build naval units more would help a lot. I'd like to see Drake get to a point where using naval units instead of gimped air units is actually feasible, but when naval units are super niche besides the uber expensive Battleships and they're up against the super flexible B Copters & Bombers i don't think it'd be possible without introducing brand new naval units.
Tbh i would give sturm's meteor strike a unique effect like the 3x3 square area but only the middle part takes 5 damage and other squares in the area only takes 2 and maybe dont effect the air units so giving sturm a weakness . And i would also remove his defence penalty and only make give him 20% extra power And maybe make max 30-35% so he would be better than sturm in a way And would also make nell's lucky star get capped at 10%-45% luck instead of 0%-45% giving her at least getting that 10% luck cus you know she is lucky
I gotta be real: I do not like the balance change to Sturm in particular. The problem is this change essentially turns him into Grimm, who we all know is kind of miserable to play as. While the Meteor Strike change gives Sturm that freedom of movement which Grimm desperately needs to function properly? I feel like a 50,000 charge time to get your proper initiations will leave you dead before you get it off. This is particularly so against Max, when Max Force lets him get his initiations much more easily and for a much lower cost. As is, I don't think it's worth it, but the altered Meteor Strike would work well with my own thought here: Personally, I'd consider altering Sturm's passive movement bonuses to only allowing treaded direct-combat units to be unaffected by Forests, and direct-combat naval units to be unaffected by Reefs. This allows him to play highly aggressive with his armored units to seize initiations, but won't allow his Infantry to run over mountain ranges, or allow his rockets and artillery to plow ahead and get set up with ease. It'd also stop his Recons from running ramshackle on the capture game, and make using a full Tank blitz in Fog of War a riskier endeavor. It'd also allow the rare occasions for his submarines and cruisers to get a first strike more effectively on the rare occasions those matter. And it'd even be thematic for his character concept, which is the whole blitzkrieg sort of mentality. Now granted, I don't know if anyone's ever tried this sort of balance in practice. But I feel like it's something that's distinctly Sturm without making him fall into the trap of being.... well, Grimm.
I don’t think unbalanced CO’s is inherently a problem. Something I always liked about playing advance wars as a kid was that you could tell people to play better CO’s than you as a handicap. Fixing broken CO’s is a good idea, but I’m sure if balance is even worth pursuing
I agree with almost everything but I disagree that you can't formulate strategies around Nell's luck. First of all, I think she is pretty clearly overpowered but I'm fine with that part. But her luck actually synergizes particularly well with certain strategies. Since each unit, no matter the cost, gets up to +20% luck, she definitely favors a more unit spammy strategy. I think she might even be better at infantry spam than Sami and Sensei, because each of those infantry can potentially do 2 hit points to anything, even neotanks, so long as they're at full health. You even showed us Nell on one of those super hard war room maps doing this strategy, compared to Adder who was utterly hopeless doing the same thing. This is all just from lousy $1000 infantry. Therefore I believe whenever possible, Nell should be beelining to as many factories as possible and spamming as many units as she can, even in lieu of bigger units like medium tanks (although while still spending all of her money, of course). Paradoxically though, I feel she actually favors larger maps where her luck has many more opportunities to come into play. So maybe in that way she does enter a state of a sort of pseudo-balance, never able to truly leverage the full potential of her luck as there aren't really any good cheap, spammy units that can also maneuver well on large maps.
Drake power- Captain's Call, Drake calls in his fleet. Navel units are free for 1 turn. (50,000) There's never that many ports so you'd get 1 to 4 free units. 100% useless on maps with no ports but then why use drake with no ports?
Is 1 HP to every unit THAT big of a deal? like, yeah, is 10% of your army gone but is evenly distributed, to a point where you almost don't feel the difference and really just puts you in a disadvantage during even combat (say Mech vs Mech on the same terrain), which can be mitigated by taking advantage of terrain or focusing on using strong units against weaker enemies and indirect combat i'd say a more reasonable nerf would be to augment the gold required a bit, specially since that woay you wouldn't need to re-work the whole power
Your point about Sonja having no luck/bad luck at all makes me think that maybe this is what Jugger from Dual Strike should've been. More like an anti-Flak, since he would be more static and predictable with his damage output to fit the robot theme, compared to Flak brute and unpredictable "style".
Not sure if this has been mentioned elsewhere, but there may be some clues in the trailer as to what some COs might look like. It shows a max copter battling a drake cruiser and the cruiser has 0 defence stars (implying no drake defence boost). The copter also only does 5 damage, which is less than a Max copter does VS a cruiser with 0 def stars in AW1. Haven't tested what it's like with co powers off, so it's possible that is what they showed though. But upon a rewatch, thought it was interesting
You bring up how naval units are just too expensive to be practical in Advance Wars, but I'm a little surprised you don't come up with the idea for Drake to spend less money on naval units instead. I suppose most naval units wouldn't be very useful to field if your opponent doesn't ever build any. Maybe that's why.
Drake shoukd have fire power. Naval units are all aboutvattacking units tgat cant fight back. Cruiser on subs or air units. Batleships. Subs. If youre taking damage with them youve fucked up.
Grit needs a new power called hominy harmony and is allowed to use it every turn and has a cool animation of him aiming his revolver and allows rocket assisted artillery to cover a wide range at lower accuracy, not like I'm a fan or anything :P OPAF is the name of the move XD but really your changes would be totally playable to this old player
I like all but eagles one I think light strike -30% def should not effect is infantry and mech instead they should gain +10% Def as they hunker down to defend. It never sat right with me that his troops who gain nothing from his power get obliterated on the counter attack. The reason they still lose 20% firepower is to show they so focused on trying to hunker down they are not organized enough to fight back properly
Alright. So after reading all your comments, I do agree that my changes to Drake wasn't very good. I'll try to revise this for the Aw2 video!
I think drake was good
Man drake tsunami isn't that bad because you can counter that with andy but even if you don't pick Andy 9 hp unit i still strong
I respect this. Props to you for taking the honest feedback into consideration.
It's all good fun Mango.
I think that something like making the damage occur at the end of Drake's turn would make sense and might be a good enough nerf. IMO the main issue global damage powers have is that they defang the entire enemy force in a single action and then you can have your own units move in and finish them off, or at least weaken them to useless HP levels. Plus it interrupts all caps regardless of where your units are and forces repairs on any unit on a property which gives an even bigger boon to value. It isn't even a case similar to Andy where you have to make a decision of whether you want to take engagements and then heal up to get a bigger value bonus or to pop the power at the start of the turn to get the firepower bonus - you get both the firepower AND the value as soon as you activate and the value you get easily can snowball over the next couple of turns.
Global damage powers are almost more powerful than something like Gold Rush in that regard, since they give the same immediate value on top of momentum in contested areas. And Gold Rush is clearly broken even though it gives less immediate presence compared to a global damage power. So I say that global damage powers do generally need some sort of nerf that doesn't let the COs that have them eat their cake and have it, too.
Plus the wave coming in at the end of the turn works the same way a tsunami does in real life.
*I’d say we can make Sturm more balanced by making his meteor strike actually hit mech balls for once.*
Aim for the balls.
But that'd just be low man. You don't just go for the balls like that.
Ball on Ball action
Too busy hitting Max's tanks
Out of topic here, I would like to propose that the modder try new mechanic like special unit for each officer which adds or replace common arsenals. Like Sami obtain commando unit and Eagle obtain assault fighter that shoot aircrafts with missile like interceptor and harrass infantry and light vehicles with autocannon like duster planes in DoR.
Maybe for Drake it would good to work in a cost reduction for naval units so he's not punished for opting into sea units when it's not required
I think a buff for Sonja should be the ability to see and attack hidden units with her power. Specifically submarines. Giving her power some use in non fog of war fights
Eagle is fine just way he is...
I take it this was recorded before Rivals.
I would have made max have a 30% firepower increase because he's just too weak
Thank you for the highlight!
Mangs: "I am not a fan of global damage powers"
:)
i never quite realized how broken global powers are until i played AWBW
It's because of this ruclips.net/video/iy6fhk6RdfY/видео.html
Lmao you gave him PTSD
@@MrKhaos0001 I know, Im the player in the video lmao
What a king
Mangs "It's important you change as little as possible otherwise it's not a rebalance"
Also Mangs "I hate Drake's power so I'm completely changing it to something in no way similar."
@Seikijin Your comment has no relation to OP's. OP was pointing out how Mangs arbitrarily replaced tsunami, despite doing so going against what he said earlier about changing as little as possible. While a true statement in itself, the unviability of naval units is a separate topic and has nothing to do with needlessly replacing Drake's power with something entirely different, especially when it's as clear and egregious a nerf as Mangs' "alternative" is here.
@@illTemperedSeaBass Mangs is going back on this, btw.
@Seikijin how about a day to day that reduces the cost of drakes navel units. Combined with navy defense drake would win navel battles through attrition.
@@danielgreenwood793 Drake is already the best naval CO, why would you make him even more dependent on naval maps, making all naval games just drake fests?
Still not a balance change if you can read. It is a rework.
Should've nerfed Max's artillery a bit more. At the current moment, they can be viable to take on Sturm in the Advanced campaign
Max Artillery? Don't you mean APC?
Nah, the problem here is the Tank Medium Max, it's incredibly broken.
That gave me a good laugh, that was a fun stream.
Did no one get the joke?
See.... I vomit hardcore whenever I see the range on a Max artillery so Imma say he's fine where he's at.
This wasn't balance meant for campaign though, you can cheese the AI many ways there.
...Watching this, I did realise something a bit odd.
Why are the strongest units in Advance Wars 1 'Medium Tanks'? Were they planning on adding a unit called 'Heavy Tanks' or something, but didn't have enough time to put them in or something? And then maybe the Heavy Tanks became the Neotanks or Megatanks in later games.
As for the video, you are entirely right with Sonja. Having no luck modifiers would suit her a lot better since she is someone who prefers to plan things out and not leave them to chance. So making it so her damage is set and doesn't deviate from the forecast would really suit her.
Actually if im not wrong in JP version they are called heavy tanks i dont know for whatever reason they changed them to medium tanks in west they also changed look of most of the CO's in west
They are called heavy tanks in Japan.
@@Mangs1337 That would explain it, then.
They are Heavy and 15 in the Japanese Version
@@TheBoneKing I think the change was made because heavy tanks aren't used on modern warfare anymore
Why you gotta do Drake so dirty like that. Man is a worse Greyfield now. Having specific D2D COs with general powers (Eagle, arguably Sensei) gives them versatility outside their specialism and makes Drake on a non-naval map, uh, relevant.
Yeah he legitimately nerfed him
@@marcar9marcar972 He's going back on that.
Good news:
He heard your feedback and is pulling an uno reverse on that.
You'd think that after Mangs getting pounded by Eagle for 3 hours would make him nerf pretty hard but yet there he is, no changes...
How much did Eagle pay you, Mangs?
Based on his funds in rivals actually pretty aloot i don't know how green earth is still standing even thought they literaly spend almost 1.1bilions of dollars in a 'friendly' battle ( rivals more like revenge)
He only bears a grudge against IS for making that lopsided mission, not Eagle himself
Well, and also against that one Drake player
@@NieOrginalny Tell me about it, he removed Drakes biggest strength (global damage)
Three Lightning Strikes and an APC on a bridge.
@@Mangs1337 unfair, eagle didn't give you the mech ball
The Drake rebalance goes against the spirit of what your re-balance set out to do: you removed his trademark and made him have the Max/Kanbei attack buff to Naval units, making him actually the worst CO of your new list in practical terms.
He acknowledged this and is actually going back on it.
@@NicoTheCinderace thanks for keeping me updated
>Eagle : A tier
>no changes
>Sami : B tier
>nerf
goddamnit Mangs
He's very angry at mechs right now
His changes don't really mix well with his tear list.
can't believe he turned sturm into grimm
Getting in those early cries of "DO THE SAME FOR DUAL STRIKE, DAYS OF RUIN, AND EVEN AWBW!" early on
"if you want balance, take all the difference of the COs out and see what you get." You get Wargroove. I know you liked that game, but lack of difference among the COs, as the blatant inutility of the CO Powers (with a few exceptions) is exactly what you described.
Even then, Wargroove has some commanders who are often banned because of how broken their powers are. Nuru especially. Her Teleport Beam lets her deploy any unit she has the deployment property for adjacent to her. They nerfed this in a patch so she has to pay double for the unit, and it's STILL broken as hell. (Pulling an indirect out of your ass to snipe a key unit or the HQ is still stupid)
Caesar's power is essentially a Reyson dance from Path of Radiance. Even a nerfed Lightning Strike still turned out to be too much for most commanders to handle.
Tenri's power might not look like much, but being able to move any unit within a wide radius of her, including herself (the only exception is the enemy commander), is ridiculously versatile. It's mobility, it's an escape tool, or it can pull key units into death range.
@@BigKlingy Sincerely, those are very specific and maybe good in determined situations, but if are winning, they won't make you win much faster, and if you are losing they won't turn the game around. Mercia has the best power since the area is big and a renewed frontline can win you a match, but Nuru, yeah, fine, you can cause big damage to HQ, but if your commander is so close to the enemy HQ, you're probably about to win anyway.
But, even so, they aren't broken, fighting with a commander without groove would probably just be mildly annoyed by those, but not that much. In Advance Wars when the enemy pops out the Super Power, you pay attention, because the damage gonna be great, in Wargroove, you just... Meh... I mean, Big Bad Boy Valder calls a new skeleton... Meh... Cesar renews the actions of 2 units (yep, 2 because it gonna be very rarely you gonna be able to position your guys in the front line in the formation for him to do it 3 or 4), your best bet is to use indirect to attack at the same turn, in exchange for his attack. Meh,,,
maybe that little stuff may make a difference between similar level high skilled players, but... Give me advance wars COs any day.
@@MrKhaos0001 Ryota is the most powerful Commander in Wargroove. He's absolutely broken.
@@inarencommander4663 Ryota and Sedge are both crazy good
@@inarencommander4663 I seriously disagree, in very specific situations, he can cause more damage than Meteor Strike, sure, but what are the chances you get your enemy to align their troops like that. Most of the time, if you use that thing, you run a straight line into the enemy ground, get surrounded, and die, same goes for Ragna Pseudo Meteor Strike, it must get her on enemy-controlled ground where she will probably be surrounded and die.
I feel like Tsunami is really the battleground for this rework's discussion, as it's justification boils down to just "I don't like it" creating a rift between players feeling the same way and players liking it/thinking it's fine. I personally disagree with this change as I feel it's just sidestepping trying to balance global damage powers and changing Tsunami here has a lot of implications for changing other global damage powers in the upcoming games. The change just makes the power less interesting as it is one of a kind in AW1 if we're not counting meteor strike and the new power would just exchange it with something we have seen a lot already. It's also a nerf to an actually very favorable matchup for Andy, who being a jack of all traits CO doesn't have much interesting stuff going for him.
But I do agree with not taking situational factors into account. Sonja being weaker in non-fow maps makes sense as well Sami being stronger on maps that favor infantry or mechs. The map and ruleset should always impact CO selection, so I'm glad this video didn't try to overbalance and give every CO something outside of their specialty.
Great changes overall. I have mixed feelings about the removal of Tsunami: I agree that global damage is not the best mechanic for advance wars, but I also think it fits Drake well thematically. He is basically designed to wear down his opponent (weather the storm so to speak.) I can't deny I hate being on the receiving end of it though...
I agree with pretty much every buffs and nerfs you did, aside from Sturm, now he feels like a Grimm copycat, so he's just bad.
I agree with the +30% firepower and -20% defense, since I always had the headcanon that he treats his own units poorly, and forces them to fight like there's no tomorrow. However, I feel like he should keep that one cost movement, which yes, is very strong, but as you said countless times, defense matters A LOT, even more than firepower, and I feel like without giving him the edge to being able to at least go through terrain swiftly, he would get his ass handed to him by multiple COs. With the 1 cost movement, Sturm certanly seems scary, but it's not like he can abuse that and just storm you without a care in the world since his units are made of foil paper and so any not planned, mindless push from him can easily be shut down as long as you don't panic, much like Grimm. just my two cents through, I pretty much agree with everything else.
Being able to traverse terrain at 1 cost is so incredibly busted.
@@Mangs1337 It really is, but I feel like without it, he's just a meh CO, through I don't really blame you for being so hard on him, he's just hard to balance imo.
I dislike your changes to drake. His power is my favorite part about him. I love the worldwide effect powers like his and hawke's, and I have grown to love candy as well for her urban blight. That is thanks to you by the way, I never thought to use her in that manner until you mentioned it in your rankings video.
Of course something overpowered is fun when you get you use them.
@@Mangs1337 but haven't you ranked both Hawke and drake at B in your last videos? Is that overpowered? I know you have changed your mind on drake because his powers cost is so low, but Hawke is one of the most balanced cos in the game in my opinion.
@@shelbyramin1376 drake's actually always been a C-Man in his rankings
@@CloudyDaze I stand corrected. I think it only furthers my point though.
@@shelbyramin1376 Honestly, considering Eagle wasn't hit NEARLY as hard. Id say he has a potentially more busted power than Drake by far, even if it does take some skill to use. Drake with a busted power is still at C. Should've made his general troops more generally useful.
I've had 1 major philosophy on balance; Buffs over nerfs. Bringing lower powered characters in games to be able to compete with the broken ones seems much more fun, and only should you rarely nerf. Also another buff for Andy without making him too different: Give him a d2d where he gets reduced cost for repairs. I don't know an exact percentage but a small price reduction on repairs would fit his whole mechanic personality since he would personally fix things himself. Just a thought
lets say an 20% less paying for repair costs, it'd save quite some money on more expensive units.
@@hadoukenfighter or rachels passive + 1 repairs.
Agree in general. Nerfs do tend to take the personality and fun out of the differences but AWDS can show the downside of going too far with 'buff everthing'. For AW1 though, its not in that state yet so you can save the nerfs for only the atrociously overpowered, like Max. The rest can be balanced by well thought out buffs.
I absolutely despise this mindset. Context matters, and you look at things on a case by case basis. Nerfs are absolutely sometimes called for and may be far more appropriate than the opposing buff, in which case the resulting overall game may be a far more fun and entertaining experience for far more people than deciding to implement buffs instead would.
Power creep is not inherently fun by any means.
While I agree that it is usually the more fun way, game design doesn't always go that way: sometimes things just are very difficult to balance 'up to level' and is more work which can cause more oversights, overshoots or undershoots. There is also possibility of something have a critical mass, which just can't be crossed, or something being bad for health of game in general - too easy for the effect, or just being unfun to deal with.
That being said, I don't think AW1 is suffering from such issue as it is pretty low-power game for most part (outside of Max), at least compared to later entries. Although that might be part of the appeal at times.
Mangs after losing to Drake:
I'd give Andy +1 HP when repairing on properties, but with half the cost to help emphasize his repairing genius. Hyper Repair would also heal 3 HP instead of 2, because 2 HP doesn't feel like it has such a huge impact on the game as it should.
Edit: Repairing on properties would still be a hard choice, but with my new Andy, it might be worth getting your unit to a nearby property because he would heal 3 HP at the cost of 1.5HP, and 3 HP can be just the oomph you need to finish off an enemy. In addition, if would make his infantry able to do more efficient capturing after they took a city in case they were damaged
I like this, almost makes andy seem like a good choice
Agreed on this change, I've seen it suggested a few times and it makes the most thematic sense for him, without being too strong. Also I think you meant to say "emphasize" not empathize.
Hadn't considered lowering the price of repairs before today. Seems good.
Do agree on +1 HP per day on allied properties, for his vehicles.
This is why the "Pareto Principle" exists. You can't fix everything, and trying to fix everything is impossible. So instead, you focus on the biggest problems for the largest results.
That what?
@@Andrewlik that. Yk'now. That.
@@Andrewlik learn 2 google
@@hirmetrium1 a follower of jp I presume?
Okay, so when are we getting a Tier list of your Tier lists?
And when will we get a tier list tier list tier list?
I feel like Drake's whole shtick is to go for the long con and holding on long enough to whittle down your opponent with tsumanis until you can go for that final push. I like to see him be a defensive CO with the old tsunami
Interesting thought exercise. With Drake in particular I think a scope error can be argued. Basically, you can balance the CO's in a local to themselves scope or globally on a player options scope.
The thing about the base balance of AW is that it *might* be totally fine for some S rank and D rank COs to exist. As the player has the option to choose who they are playing. Instead what may be important is how many options the player has and how meaningful those options are. Grit is a key example as he pairs with a *player* approach of using indirects. Even if Grit was weak he may be the best fit for a specific player's playstyle.
Mang's approach to Drake may be adjusting the local Drake scope at the cost of removing a global player option. Base Drake is the only way a player gets a CO power like that. Drake's day to day is so specific to naval and air that he's almost an average no day 2 day CO. No day 2 day is a player option that some players would appreciate. They can choose heal, enemy dmg, or snow.
By removing Tsunami you totally remove an option on the player scope. This could still easily work out locally for Drake as a CO. I'm not going to bother making my own hard judgement on a thought exercise.
I will say that Drake's CO power has one particular interaction that I have not seen Mangs highlight. Going back to watch his Wargroove campaign, I've seen Mangs miss this point there too. (where early campaign he undervalues "sacrificing" a swordsman to do 10% to a CO) Attacking a unit that has some damage on it is much safer then one at 100%. It can sometimes mean significantly reduced counter attack damage and domino into better outcomes over several turns. Two infantry attacking each other over the course of several turns is a good example.
"I'm going to nerf Sturm to be balanced against the other COs by making him Grimm."
Mangs, I love your attention to Drake, and I agree that Tsunami is OP 1 and I main Drake! However…
Giving Drake a firepower boost seems a bit too easy. Boats cost so much, and they have to be in position. Eagle is the air CO and gets to move twice - Why not let Drake work like him? Exchange the 20% firepower boost for the ability to allow Drake to move and shoot his Battleships for 1 turn?
He won’t have that many ships due to their high cost, but the ones he does have will be incredibly solid for that one turn!
True balance isn't impossible, It's just that a truly balanced game wouldn't be very fun or interesting. Think about it this way. Hypothetical: I'm making a FPS game and I want all the guns to be balanced, but I want to have different guns. The first gun I'm going to design is an Kalashnikov. I design the gun to have a slower fire rate, but more damage per bullet. Then I'm going to design a FAMAS. It will have lower damage but have a faster fire rate. Then all I have to do from there is make the DPS between the two guns the same. It's technically 100% balanced even though one gun might shine over the other a little in certain scenarios. Does that sound like a very fun game? even though the stats of the 2 guns are somewhat different they're basically the same gun. A good example of a perfectly balanced game is the very first Street Fighter. There is Ryu and there is Ken, but they have the same exact moves and the same exact damage values leading to the game being a snooze fest.
Most people when they call something "unbalanced" actually just want it to be more in line with the "power level" of other weapons/ equipment/characters because actual balance would look some thing like this. Hypothetical 2: Character one gets 10% more power but 10% less defense. Character 2 gets 10% less power but gains 10% more defense. Character three gets 10% more defense but has 1 less vision range. Character 4 gets 10% more damage but has 1 less vision range, etc.
In conclusion, no one actually wants a balanced game. Everyone just want's everything to be around the same general, to steal from DBZ, power level. No one wants to have to deal with the bs of something's power level being "over 9000!" but everyone at the same time wants to feel powerful. Personally for me I like to use the weaker items/ options in a game and just get crazy skilled with it because it makes me feel more powerful than if I were to use the strong item/ option. I mean hell I really like playing Sonja and it's not exactly like she's high up on any Advance Wars tier list but she's fun to play and it feels really good when to get the perfect Counter Break that swings the match in your favor. That and annoying the hell out of people because they don't know how much HP your units have is fun. I wonder what Grimm Guy's opinion would be on this actually. Well anyways great video as always Mangs!
Uhhh i dont know about Drake... I know his Power isnt well balanced, but i cant really imagine him without it.
Nice balance, really good overall. here is what I would do to improve based on your new version :
kanbei losing 10% is a lot on day-to-day so I would in fact buff his morale boost defense to 40%. while he may have his morale boost more often, he will get less defense in average compared to the original verion
drake I don't think a rework is needed, sure it's annoying but there is a way to improve it. I would make his tsunami will deal 1 damage to any unit on sea/reef/shoal/river and it's adjacent tile. that way it will still deal global damage but there is a way to prevent it. I would also reduce the cost to 30K.
sturm I think 30% firepower and -20% is too weak on a day-to-day basic (we all know with grimm), making it 20% firepower and -10% defense seems fair
In the AWBW server they have a balancing discussion about COs every so often, where they give ideas on how to bring them all to Tier 1, but I've always wondered how it'd be if they were all rebalanced to be Tier 0. It'd be hilariously broken for some reason.
The higher the tier, the more unique and diverse they have to be(giving every CO the same buff is no buff at all), the harder it is to keep them balanced.
I am not saying it wouldn't be fun, but it would be a lot of careful tweaking and extra complexity, the latter part making things harder.
So... SF2 rainbow edition? I can get behind that, if only just for the memes
Andy has hyper upgrade from the second game as his only ability
Eagle's lightning strike is 30,000 points and has no offensive penalty
Sonya's units are always hidden in fog unless adjacent to an enemy
Drake and Olaf have rain and snow 100% of the time, unless facing each other.
Sami's infantry and mechs always have +1 movement, or she gets a discount on transports instead
Nell has 10% minimum good luck, bumped up to 20% on her CO power
Grit's indirects can counterattack
@Samuel Duff No, all luck based COs will have a permanent luck boost to minimum firepower (like, +20 to +70 for Nell or something) and also a big increase in the threshold for their max luck power
Beating the dead horse, but im all for seeing more of this stuff 🤣
I’ve only seen the Andy segment, but what if he was buffed and had his hyper repair do 3 points of repair? (like Brenner)
Advance wars 2
@@soulhoney1227 what about it?
@@portalguy2246 i meam it would be the same as advance wars 2
@@portalguy2246 but i am very curios on advance wars 2 what mangs will do to buff characters like flak or nerd like advance wars 2 sturm and kanbei
@@soulhoney1227 ah I see
The issue I have with doing huge rebalances with Cos is that some of them just get robbed of their identity. Being able to move over terrain is basically Sturms calling card,so taking that away just immediately makes him less special imo.
He still gets to do that in the campaign. However if you want him to be rebalanced for versus mode, you cannot let him have that ability. It's either that or ban him from multiplayer.
@@Mangs1337 agree tbh too broken to be in pvp
also no it really ISNT his identity, his identity is the big freaking meteor strike, being able to move through terrain doesnt have anyhing to do with his character OR having that CO Power, its just an extra tagged on day to day
@@whywasmyrealnamehere Absolutely has something to do with his identity. He is an alien overlord who doesnt care about our planet or what terrain might be placed upon it. He is obviously a lot more enhanced technological wise than we are and so it makes sense that he could mow through trees and mountains like its nothing.
@@Shazam1998 lol so not caring about terrain makes you invulerable to it slowing you down? makes no sense, and in AW1 there was no real indication of him being alien like, all you knew was he wore a mask could clone CO's and summoned meteors somehow. Theres nothing about him that indicates that he can somehow move through terrain easier
I think the Kanbei should have his attack nerfed rather than his defense. One of the things that makes Kanbei good is that his units don't die and he can accumulate them over the course of a match to compensate for his higher deployment cost.
Except that’s literally what mangs said he wants to avoid? Like, explicitly that’s exactly what he said he wanted to make harder to do. You have to work for your death push, you don’t just get it for the opponent trying to take trades
@@yoshifan2334
sure, but I still feel like this is what makes Kanbei unique
edit: also, I should clarify that I'm not super experienced with Advance Wars so take my opinion with a grain a salt
Kanbei is a buffoon, though, who rushes into battle without strategy or care for consequences. It would be out of character for his units to be defensive walls.
I'd say I agree. 10% defense buff is basically worthless. Look at Von Bolt in AWDS. You barely know he has it. The defense must stay, otherwise he's paying too much for units that still die just as easily as anyone else's, but he has 20% less of them to use. And as he points out, Kanbei's CO power is overpriced and unremarkable, and I think that's intended to keep him in check. Eagle for the same price gets a freakin second turn.
@@shoopdahoop678
But the fact that he has higher defense could explain why he tends to be so reckless (just like real Kanbei mains!)
Just some ideas: Sturm moves through everything, but costs a ton of extra fuel for balance when he exercises that privilege. For the meteor, consider a rework to the AI of that event to be more predictable and possibly to increase the chance it hits his own men . For example, make it so he can only call it down on one of his units and rely on the splash to damage the enemy. Sturm seems like the kind of guy to rely on sacrificing his own men rather than relying on chance. Have Drake's deluge sap a small percentage of fuel from the enemy while you're at it, no CO makes use of that mechanic so it's ripe design space (in AW1). I hope your changes find their way into a ROM.
Targeting meteor on your own men could pair well with splash damage zones. Rather than flat 3 damage, it could do 4 in the center, then 3 damage on the 4 squares around it, the next ring be 2 damage and the outside do 1. What a fun exercise.
I like your way of balancing things.
Keep what makes that character special, even if it is considred too strong but put a different kind of nerf on that CO.
And exploring new mechanics is always fun to see.
@@DaRoblin That wouldn't make things much better. If you could choose the unit on you own, that would end in either spamming cheap units to keep the enemy away from them or sending in a hidden kamikaze recon.
@@projectpitchfork860 Your arguments are true but only if Sturm fills up his meter quickly. If it still fills up slowly, then the guy's changes are all right, I think
@@TheKingNaesala That sounds great.
It'd be cool if someone made a romhack with these changes implimented to really test how good this rebalancing would be.
How to rebalance: Make *EVERYONE* broken.
STONKS
When everyone is op, no one is
(c) that one Sailor moon Super Famicom fighting game
Truuuuuuuuuu
The only problem with that is then COs who have special abilities to hard counter other COs basically boot them from the meta.
Andy would hard counter Drake, for example.
@@GreyWolfLeaderTW But Drake could also be seen as a Hard Counter for Andy. Sure, Drake's CO power isn't doing anything in the grand scheme of things, but neither is Andy's. They cancel each other out.
what if you did for drakes tsunami: 1 damage to all land and naval units that are not on mountains or properties. also makes it rain for 1 day
if we want to make naval units relevant we need economy in sea, a sea property which gives 1000 gold and a ship that can capture it, then there will be a reason to fight over naval.
Battle ships are too little of a reward
@Ferny Panda going from one currency to three may make the game more complicated for new players
You can have wildly asymmetric games have balance. Take Fury of Dracula for instance. It’s unimaginably asymmetric and yet has a win rate between factions on the same level as the win rates in chess.
So, opinions on your balancing take !
-Andy: He really should just have a 50% d2d repair reduction cost or +1 repairs at normal cost. Double dipping his whole mechanic gimmick makes him stand out as a CO while keeping him average, because it feels weird to be "the average balance guy" and then having a cheaper than average power.
-Olaf: Since he doesn't have d2d, making him also get the random weather boost can make for a really stupid Olaf vs Drake matchup. and that would be hilarious.
-Kanbei: Defense is the whole gimmick of Kanbei... nerfing that really changes his playstyle, and it would ruin his CO identity.
nerfing his prices to 25% should really add up to being nasty without making him feel less Kanbei.
-Drake: Overhauling Tsunami doesn't feel good at all. Buffing Naval units by reducing their cost 20%, and then giving Drake a d2d 10% reduction to Naval units has been the most common buff I've seen, and I really agree with it.
-Sturm: Buff him to +30/-10%. I agree no movement penalty must go for Multiplayer, but -20% defense is just really, really bad in competitive, and it may overnerf him.
The balancing factor I once decided for kanbei was that he gains half the defense from terrain, which fun fact, never results in him having less defense than a normal co. Using the logic that he has great tactics and military expertise on even ground, but fights so honorably that he doesn't know how to properly utilize unfair advantages. This way he keeps that massive defense boost, but doesn't get those immortal setups that genuinely aren't fun to fight
Still waiting for that video on balancing the Advance Wars 2 CO's, Mangs. :P
I never cease to be surprised how you hate Sami for capturing faster. God, Mangs, this is what she's made for.
Also sturm isn't meant to be fair, I wouldn't touch him, although I agree he doesn't suit the defensive role they gave him on versus mode.
Hes supposed to be the exmachina, so let it (and ban him from competitive matches instead).
So beside the sturm and sami (I wouldn't touch them) I agree with anything else on the video.
10:00 I think you forgot to factor in the innate power buffs which put kanbai's troops at +54% firepower and 43% defense respectively.
No. Kanbei works differently. His co power sets his universal damage dealt to 140% and his damage taken to 70%. It is actually not a firepower and defense increase :)
@@Mangs1337 oh, very interesting! Does that mean he's the only CO with a day to day power affecting its universal multipliers (because all of his troops have the same buff) or is it the case for every CO's day to day power?
I'll throw my hat in the ring. I agree with Mangs on some points but I think there are some other potentially interesting avenues to go about balancing here.
ORANGE STAR COs
Andy: 'Balanced CO'
+Pays 50% less on base repairs than other COs
+Hyper Repair cost lowered to 25,000
Max: 'Direct Combat Specialist'
-Direct firepower buff decreased to 130%
-Max Force cost increased to 35,000 from 30,000
-Max Force only applies movement to attack units
Sami: 'Infantry & Capture Specialist'
-Capture rate bonus decreased from 50% to 30% (Agree with Mangs here)
Nell: 'Roll the Dice CO'
(I think this CO can go either way. I think Nell is fine as is, but I could see the decrease in luck value in exchange for CO power charge working fine as well)
-No Changes
BLUE MOON COs
Olaf: 'Snow CO'
+Gains day to day ability of +20% unit defense in snow (Going with the idea of bogging down the battlefield and digging in)
+Blizzard cost decreased to 25,000
Grit: 'Indirect Combat Specialist'
-No Changes
YELLOW COMET COs
Kanbei: 'Elite Forces Specialist'
-No Changes
Sonja: 'Fog of War Specialist'
+/- Has no good luck. Bad luck value removed
+ Enhanced Vision now halves property defense bonuses (Has intel on where units are in cities/factories/etc)
GREEN EARTH COs
Eagle: 'Air Unit Specialist'
-No changes
Drake: 'Naval Unit Specialist'
(With Drake, I like the idea of exploring his 'pirate' history a little more, so his balancing attempts to reflect that more. I do think Drake is sort of difficult to balance because he's specialized in the most expensive yet challenging to use units, and his air units are so terrible. )
+Added day to day ability of all naval units being 20% cheaper due to his plundered wealth
+All naval units gain +10% firepower
-Decreased 120% naval unit defense to base 100% defense
BLACK HOLE CO
Sturm: '???'
(I'm not too much of a fan of the changes Mangs proposed, mostly because of the heavy defense penalty.)
+/- All units have 110% firepower and defense
+/- Maintains his unit's movement powers, but due to being unfamiliar with Earth's climate treats rain as snow, and suffers the same effects of snow as every CO
+Meteor Strike damage buffed to 5 damage per unit
-Meteor Strike cost nerfed from 50,000 to 60,000
I agree with you on some of these, and disagree on some others.
-Andy still sucks, and so does his power. Give it +3HP instead of +2, in addition to the reduced cost. One third of your damaged funds returning is far more considerable than one fifth, and if he can do that more often it would encourage his opponent to focus down his injured units, lest they return back at respectable levels.
-I feel like Sami's capture game is still entirely too strong. In practice, +30% capture rate is still nearly as strong as +50%, and if she pops double time her caps are still almost entirely unstoppable. Making her capture rate +20% instead would make it easier to stop her, even when she pops double time, as long as you focus her down, cuz at 30% it's still rather hopeless.
-Max's changes were pretty good.
-Dunno if Nell required changes, but I've never seen her in action so I'll take your word for it.
-Olaf's one defining gimmick just isn't enough, really. Just a little less movement for the enemy once in a while, admittedly is kinda annoying, leaves much to be desired when compared to the competition. There's two ways you can take Olaf here: offensive or defensive. If you want an Offensive Olaf, give his units +10% in firepower and defense, so his blizzard will let him make a push while his opponents are no longer able to run. If you want Defensive, you could give Blizzard its AW3 effect on top of the reduced movement, letting it sap fuel or supplies, thus making Olaf try to stall his opponents and waste their income fixing the damages his Blizzard caused.
-Grit faces a huge penalty for a benefit that's far more "annoying" than it is "helpful". +1 range on his indirects is nice and all, but the bulk of his army is still directs, he needs vision to fire on someone in the first place. Snipe Attack doesn't need a change, but +10% firepower on his indirects would go a long way in making him feel less "Ugh, this again" to "Oh god, this again".
-I do like Kanbei's change to his power, making him feel more interesting to play since you get to power up and kick some ass more often. Though I'm not sure you thought about his defensive change much in conjunction, Kanbei's design is just too strange to touch without seeing the effects firsthand.
-One more buff I feel like Sonja would like is hiding her HP bar even in animations. I feel like the ability to see her HP bar in animations sort of invalidates one of the most unique things she had going for her, so I think doubling down on that would make her more separated from the rest of the cast.
-Eagle is my boy.
-You said you didn't want to drastically change CO's, but then you just dumped on Drake's CO power, making it go from unique and dangerous to really bog standard and "shrug" worthy. I'd say change back Tsunami. Keep the unreduced vision in the rain, cuz the fact rain hurts him at all makes no sense, and then give his day to day a -10% to ship costs, making him a naval juggernaut. Ships don't even need extra firepower, they hit hard enough. He just needs to be able to make the damn things.
-Sturm's changes feel interesting. It makes him feel more dangerous and unpredictable, and I love it.
"You said you didn't want to drastically change CO's, but then you just dumped on Drake's CO power, making it go from unique and dangerous to really bog standard and "shrug" worthy. I'd say change back Tsunami. Keep the unreduced vision in the rain, cuz the fact rain hurts him at all makes no sense, and then give his day to day a -10% to ship costs, making him a naval juggernaut. Ships don't even need extra firepower, they hit hard enough. He just needs to be able to make the damn things."
Don't worry. He's going back on that. He realized on second thought the changes were too harsh.
I feel like Drake is plagued with 2 gimmicks that don't mesh well at all. There should be two separate COs, one for rain, another for ships.
hey jo Mangs! good job. i used to worked in balancing some other older strategy game and realy can tell that you are realy mindfull with your changes. i totally agree with most of your changes. i also like the idea with Drakes new power. Only thing i thought about it, is it beeing the same price olafs. Sure, snow is more of a movement penelty. but Rain also reduces drakes enemys vision. In Fact i also like that Drakes ship also get a firepower bonus, but maybe with all that in mind his power should cost a lil' more then Olafs. Especialy when we, as you said play him on a map that forces you to build ships. Or maybe we also get a naval-price-rework so they aren't something you only build when you are forced into it.
If Konami was in charge of Advance Wars: "just ban 'em"
"Here's a new Advance Wars Game... exclusively in a Casino near you!"
As A Hardcore Yu-Gi-Oh Player I Felt that.
Sooooo Sturm is literally grimm day to day now
To this day those meteor watcher mechs are still looking for there meteor
Smh Kanbei should have got buffed maybe 50% extra in both and a 20k power ;)
I’d make Drake ships stronger and/or cheaper
idea for Kanbei:
remains as it is, but it will consume double ammo and double fuel (or at least 1.5)
Like ranking the COs, you're probably going to want to make this for the entire series rather than just the first 2 games. I mean, it's a solid idea that is going to have president (and I'd certainly watch you try to make Caulder "balanced").
how to rebalance the Land, Air, and Sea units?
tbh just making sea units cheaper is probably enough, and maybe make Cruisers able to fire on adjacent land units akin to Anti-Airs, it wouldn't be a massive buff but apparently there is an animation for it in AW2 if you cheat to do it.
@@edfreak9001 lets see maybe the costs could be
Lander- $10000
Cruiser- $15000
Submarine- $18000
Battleship- $ 22000 or $20000
whatcha think?
@@rockowlgamer631 probably fine
Can you do another days of ruin playtrough? Or more multiplayer matches on days of ruin?
I don't think a 20% FP boost during your revised CO Power would be a meaningful change considering Battleships and Cruisers are powerful enough against Land and Sub/Air units respectively, but I'd have made his naval units cheaper (~25-30% cheaper).
I would have given Olaf a +15% attack and defense when it's snowing
I personally would give andy some kind of day-to-day resupply and repair cost down or enhancement, like repairing 3hp instead of 2 (tho that could be quite op) or maybe making his repairs cost 10% less funds, which would not really be too consequential, but would play in his gimmick and make repairs at least a tad more worth it/interesting.
I feel like without naval unit rework Drakes new set would make him even weaker.
Can we just talk about how cute sami is in the aw remake for a sec-
That WayForward magic. :D
Glad to see this one ! The original was indeed pretty antiquated as well, glad you remade if.
Wait eagle use lignting drive in the demo of AW Reboot camp at 13:04 , does that mean he gets his Advance Wars Dual Strike power and superpower? Or maybe he gets only lighning drive when you play the AW 1 storyline and he gets his superpower with the AW2 story.
A small firepower boost to Drake's naval ships is terrible. The Global Damage is Drake's main balancing factor to how terrible naval units are. Having a CO power that only works on Naval units is a horrific nerf, IMHO.
I think sturm should be +20A -30D but retaining the movement since its his whole deal.
You get haste at the cost of being fragile, a rushed plan, just like sturm in the first game.
Grimm is Smiling in the Distance.
@@TKHedgeHog Yeah it kinda is just a better grim isnt it?
Grimm be Grimm hehehe
I disagree with almost all of your changes. I’ve been playing advance wars for as long as you. Max for example is basically terrible in Adv Wars 2, which is basically your status change minus the super power. 30% is better. Personally, I think you are letting Sami’s annoyance get the better of you. I agree that there are some balancing issues, but you are over doing it some what.
With Olaf, I would also have added the same thing Drake has, where there is a slightly higher chance for it to snow when he is your commander. Given his relationship with Nell, it makes sense to me he'd have some kind of luck-based ability as well.
i disagree that tsunami is bad game design
jsut like sonja seeing in hiding places, he becomes strong in some places. its more frustrating to paly against, but not that strong
Here is my list.
Andy: half repair costs and hyper repair repairs 3 HP.
Max: firepower to 120%
Sami: only APC's +1 movement
Nell: power more expensive
Olaf: 120% firepower in snow
Grit: CO power gives +1 range. Indirects 115% firepower
Kanbei: 115% def
Sonja: no luck
Eagle: transport units can't move twice
Drake: +20% firepower when it rains. Ships are 120/120
Sturm: 85/115
The joke about the AWBW Drake teaching Mangs to hate global damage Powers (and Drake specifically) has already been made a few times, so skipping right to the "thoughts on Deluge."
You mention that Drake's balance relies upon the affordability of naval units, and then completely shrug your own statement off, remove his basically sole redeeming quality, and replace it with a damage buff on units that are still so prohibitively expensive that they'll never realistically see use to begin with. If getting rid of Tsnu-snu-nami is such an imperative, its replacement should at the minimum address and alleviate why Drake's specialization is considered to be so weak. Instead of Tsunami or "Deluge," give him something called "Flood Season" or "Flash Flood," which for one turn causes rain and makes all naval units around 25% cheaper to make for Drake. If "vision unaffected by rain" isn't made part of his d2d, it should also be incorporated into this power.
A 21k battleship is a substantial discount to its heavily overvalued stock price of 28k, while still leaving it as a pretty expensive commitment so as not to break the economy side of things. Still not a perfect solution imo, but for an almost-immune-to-tanks, longer-range, more situational Water-Rocket, 6k more compared to Rockets (15k) isn't that unreasonable. And again, the discount only lasts 1 turn, so he isn't going to be rocking a free 25% larger navy at all times on maps where ships are *necessary:* only that it's a not-entirely unviable option when they *aren't.*
To further contextualize this, for one turn:
• Landers would cost 9,000, down from 12,000
• Cruisers would cost 13,500, down from 18,000
• Subs would cost 15,000, down from 20,000
• Battleships would cost 21,000, down from 28,000
(frankly, I think the prices of naval units in general should be decreased around 10-30% across the board, but if Drake's power is to make shamelessly overpriced units temporarily affordable, so be it. At least it's unique to him.)
Custom Co idea #10: Sham, the Shove master
Infantry and Mechs can shove units one space provided those units can traverse that terrain. Infantry can only shove "lighter" vehicles (footsoldiers, recons, A-Air, tanks, artillary, APCs), while mechs can shove "medium" Vehicles (Md. Tank, Rockets, Missiles, and Landers).
3 stars: Smite: Infantry can now shove anything mechs can and mechs can shove Neotanks, Piperunners, and non-battleship docked naval units [not counting submerged subs]) or smite units they could already shove (2 spaces instead of 1)
7 stars: Determination: Pulls a Flak and Smite except they can now shove stuff through terrain that they can't normally move through
He's part of the third army, the neutralists (name pending).
I know this is a one year old video, but with Advance Wars being on people's minds lately (especially with the direct tomorrow), I thought I might chip in with my own opinion on this video:
I don't agree with your choice of not changing Grit. Not because I believe he's too weak or strong without changes, but because having such a weak day-to-day and such a strong and cheap CO power feels to me like it doesn't match how the other COs are balanced. -20% firepower even on infantry is a lot, and only for +1 range on indirects? Yes, having more range is incredibly strong, but the tradeoff is too much, especially with how much worse it would be for Grit on small maps where he likely wouldn't be able to contest any infantry fights at all without support from indirects. Meanwhile, an extra +2 range on his indirects with his power, and +65% firepower is a LOT. Give grit the chance to have a good number of indirects and vision, either in a recon or infantry on a mountain, and chances are whatever he's attacking won't live, unless it's a medium tank on a city. Even then, it would take enough damage where its effectiveness would be greatly reduced and a second shot would likely finish it off.
I think it would be much better to make Grit's day to day be much closer to his AW2 version, -10% firepower instead of -20% and only to direct units, not infantry or mechs. To balance this his CO power would need to be weakened a lot, either a hefty firepower reduction like to 25-30% instead of 65% or, to keep the ability to demolish armies with a few well-placed indirects, a price increase, something like 40,000.
I know this goes against that spirit of "It if ain't broke don't change it", and balance wise Grit ain't broke, but I do think he is broke in the way that how he plays is too different on a fundamental level to other COs. A CO should be strong enough to stand on their own two feet with their day-to-day, with their CO power having the potential to turn the game around if played well. Grit doesn't fit that first criteria to me.
If I have the hot take to nerf Drake's Tsunami, it would probably be this:
Let him keep the Tsunami, however his global damage will now tally to the affected CO meter, meaning they will now generate their power instead of not getting it under the effect of Tsunami. A 1 HP unit will not die, but the cost loss effect is still active, still giving the affected unit to generate power to the CO.
My 'overkill' nerf is that Drake's Tsunami dealing global damage will now add more power based on the enemy unit's based cost by +0.10%.
Okay, this will be confusing and I will look stupid after this, but if you know what I mean.
Take a cost of an infantry. It costs 1000 as normal ten HP on infantry, that means every 1 unit of HP is cost that amount. For this case of Infantry, its 100 (not 1000). If Drake popped his Tsunami, it will deal 1 HP of damage, but the value it did will be 200 instead, thus will generate the CO meter faster. This is multiplied by two with SCOP.
I'll... Work on this tomorrow or some day.
Edit 2: Okay so like, Drake's Global damage will make enemies generate the opposing CO's power meter.
This is what I have been trying to say but tired brain just died last week.
A suggestion to adjust Kanbei's defense better:
Gameplay-wise, players need to rely on Kanbei's defense to hold chokepoints.
Story-wise, Kanbei rushes in without thinking, and leaves his defenses open.
Therefore, I propose to adjust the defense of Kanbei's direct-combat and transport units inversely with the speed of their last movement:
Kanbei unit did not move: +25% defense
Kanbei unit moved a little: +20% defense
Kanbei unit moved moderately: +15% defense
Kanbei unit moved a lot: +10% defense.
That way, Kanbei players can defend an existing chokepoint well, but cannot too easily secure a new area. (This is also why his ground indirects don't get more than +10% defense bonus; otherwise, virtually any chokepoint will go to Kanbei. I'm undecided on battleships.)
(Also, that one Advance Campaign mission is made a little easier: if Kanbei's planes abuse Fog of War and rush your troops, they'll be a little more vulnerable.)
You'd have to ignore character concept by A LOT to create a scenario where 50/50 win rate is the norm. It's impossible imo. Just have NO COs- that would be the solution.
Even when a CO would virtually have a lower winrate, there would be certain players and contexts where the "lower winrate" or "lower advantage" can turn into a strategic and/or tactical advantage.
For example, in chess, there are certain people, whether by luck, habit, or skill, who have a knack for playing well with black, despite white supposedly having a first-move advantage.
It's like when a fighter thinks they have the upper hand, but they're being played by the other setting up for a counter.
Or how an old, beat-up Toyota Corolla can beat a Mazda RX-7 given the right race track.
Perceived weaknesses can be real strengths.
That being said, who am I to talk? LOL Last time I played Advanced Wars was like a decade ago- and am just happy that they have made the game for Switch.
Actual I think your Drake chances would make Drake unplayable without ships.
If you want to removes global damage I think the best way would to buff his fuel drain in the other games. (also 1 damage is not that severe if we consider his d2d buffes the weakest unit in the game)
So if I would rebalance Drake planning to remove his global damage I would make his cop still cut away 50% fuel. But would make his Scop cut away 75% fuel. Also would make it he not gets a vision debuff in rain.
Also you just made Sturm -> Grimm with a 3 hp meteor strike^^
Maybe Drake could have 10-20% cheeper Naval units to make them a bit more relevant (still keep his defense buff, but maybe reduce it to one star). I think this would be totally broken on maps with a lot of naval, but could be helpfully more land based maps (which a lot of multiplayer is) without breaking the game too much. Navy will still be pretty expensive for him, but it won’t be as laughable.
Another idea could be to give Drake flat buffs to the range and strength of Battleships and cruisers. Make the Battleships rockets of the sea and make cruisers actually good Anti-air. I was thinking +20% Firepower on cruisers and +10% firepower and +1 range on Battleships.
Andy = APC heals 1hp, City heals
3hp
Sami = Infantry and Mechs can do Indirect attack if they dont move but does 70% Atk power.
APCs can carry 2 Infantry and Mechs
Max = Indirects can do Melee but does 50% Atk power. Keep the +2 Move when using Super Power
Jess = APCs can do indirect attack provided it has infantry or mech in it
I agree with most of your suggestions but the only gripes I have are with Max & Sonja. I feel like AW2 version of Max works because they balanced him with his SCOP in mind, so just giving him 20% d2d feels kinda weak IMO when all you have is a COP to work with that puts him back at his old D2D with some movement. I do agree he still needs a massive nerf, but I guess it's hard to gauge how the values should look without seeing it in play against other COs. Also, I feel like giving Sonja no-luck kind of works against her gimmick of not being able to see her unit HP, because you'll be able to much more reliably tell how much HP a unit has when it doesn't have a luck value. I think having a normal luck value on Sonja, all else the same, would be just fine personally. I have way less experience playing AW1 though so my impressions might be a bit off in that sense.
Ive played so much advance wars and my favorite multiplayer is exactly days of ruin with no COs.
But what you do here is just... yikes. "Make them all 25k and take away the unique stuff like drakes global damage" XD
They should just include no CO option like days of ruin and keep the variety. Id rather buff andy by making his co power heal for +3 instead. Cheaper cost just loses variety by having sami no longer with the cheapest power
I'm honestly not ok with Sami's change. I think AW2 did a great rework by removing all defenses and making her infantry not viable anymore as just the big line to hold while you rain on the enemy. On average your Infantry units are gonne get interrupted by 3-5 damage while capping. This means removing that % gives the enemy the second strike chance and makes it an interrupt. You basically denied AW1 Sami's entire gimmick.
Also yes, I agree with everyone else Drake was too drastic. I would make so Tsunami makes it rain, and maybe a naval discount to fix the one actual problem with him? Battleships become literally more viable by a margin of 10% every 1k they cost less after all.
i feel like Drake's naval units should have a slight discount (maybe 20%) so he can actually use a decent chunk of them and reliably win naval battles. the individual CO unit cost mechanic already exists with Kanbei (and Collin/Hachi in AW2) so it wouldn't require a brand new system or anything.
It's tricky to make a CO who focuses on such a niche group of units work (which is why Drake is more known for his tsunami than his D2D powers) but i think giving Drake the capacity to actually build naval units more would help a lot. I'd like to see Drake get to a point where using naval units instead of gimped air units is actually feasible, but when naval units are super niche besides the uber expensive Battleships and they're up against the super flexible B Copters & Bombers i don't think it'd be possible without introducing brand new naval units.
Tbh i would give sturm's meteor strike a unique effect like the 3x3 square area but only the middle part takes 5 damage and other squares in the area only takes 2 and maybe dont effect the air units so giving sturm a weakness . And i would also remove his defence penalty and only make give him 20% extra power
And maybe make max 30-35% so he would be better than sturm in a way
And would also make nell's lucky star get capped at 10%-45% luck instead of 0%-45% giving her at least getting that 10% luck cus you know she is lucky
I gotta be real: I do not like the balance change to Sturm in particular. The problem is this change essentially turns him into Grimm, who we all know is kind of miserable to play as. While the Meteor Strike change gives Sturm that freedom of movement which Grimm desperately needs to function properly? I feel like a 50,000 charge time to get your proper initiations will leave you dead before you get it off. This is particularly so against Max, when Max Force lets him get his initiations much more easily and for a much lower cost. As is, I don't think it's worth it, but the altered Meteor Strike would work well with my own thought here:
Personally, I'd consider altering Sturm's passive movement bonuses to only allowing treaded direct-combat units to be unaffected by Forests, and direct-combat naval units to be unaffected by Reefs. This allows him to play highly aggressive with his armored units to seize initiations, but won't allow his Infantry to run over mountain ranges, or allow his rockets and artillery to plow ahead and get set up with ease. It'd also stop his Recons from running ramshackle on the capture game, and make using a full Tank blitz in Fog of War a riskier endeavor. It'd also allow the rare occasions for his submarines and cruisers to get a first strike more effectively on the rare occasions those matter. And it'd even be thematic for his character concept, which is the whole blitzkrieg sort of mentality.
Now granted, I don't know if anyone's ever tried this sort of balance in practice. But I feel like it's something that's distinctly Sturm without making him fall into the trap of being.... well, Grimm.
I don’t think unbalanced CO’s is inherently a problem.
Something I always liked about playing advance wars as a kid was that you could tell people to play better CO’s than you as a handicap.
Fixing broken CO’s is a good idea, but I’m sure if balance is even worth pursuing
I agree with almost everything but I disagree that you can't formulate strategies around Nell's luck. First of all, I think she is pretty clearly overpowered but I'm fine with that part. But her luck actually synergizes particularly well with certain strategies. Since each unit, no matter the cost, gets up to +20% luck, she definitely favors a more unit spammy strategy. I think she might even be better at infantry spam than Sami and Sensei, because each of those infantry can potentially do 2 hit points to anything, even neotanks, so long as they're at full health. You even showed us Nell on one of those super hard war room maps doing this strategy, compared to Adder who was utterly hopeless doing the same thing. This is all just from lousy $1000 infantry. Therefore I believe whenever possible, Nell should be beelining to as many factories as possible and spamming as many units as she can, even in lieu of bigger units like medium tanks (although while still spending all of her money, of course). Paradoxically though, I feel she actually favors larger maps where her luck has many more opportunities to come into play. So maybe in that way she does enter a state of a sort of pseudo-balance, never able to truly leverage the full potential of her luck as there aren't really any good cheap, spammy units that can also maneuver well on large maps.
Drake power- Captain's Call, Drake calls in his fleet. Navel units are free for 1 turn. (50,000)
There's never that many ports so you'd get 1 to 4 free units. 100% useless on maps with no ports but then why use drake with no ports?
Is 1 HP to every unit THAT big of a deal?
like, yeah, is 10% of your army gone but is evenly distributed, to a point where you almost don't feel the difference and really just puts you in a disadvantage during even combat (say Mech vs Mech on the same terrain), which can be mitigated by taking advantage of terrain or focusing on using strong units against weaker enemies and indirect combat
i'd say a more reasonable nerf would be to augment the gold required a bit, specially since that woay you wouldn't need to re-work the whole power
Your point about Sonja having no luck/bad luck at all makes me think that maybe this is what Jugger from Dual Strike should've been. More like an anti-Flak, since he would be more static and predictable with his damage output to fit the robot theme, compared to Flak brute and unpredictable "style".
Not sure if this has been mentioned elsewhere, but there may be some clues in the trailer as to what some COs might look like. It shows a max copter battling a drake cruiser and the cruiser has 0 defence stars (implying no drake defence boost). The copter also only does 5 damage, which is less than a Max copter does VS a cruiser with 0 def stars in AW1. Haven't tested what it's like with co powers off, so it's possible that is what they showed though. But upon a rewatch, thought it was interesting
Answer: don't give max steroids.
*And dont let Sturm control the cosmic pathing of meteors*
Who put steroids on max meat?
You bring up how naval units are just too expensive to be practical in Advance Wars, but I'm a little surprised you don't come up with the idea for Drake to spend less money on naval units instead. I suppose most naval units wouldn't be very useful to field if your opponent doesn't ever build any. Maybe that's why.
Drake shoukd have fire power. Naval units are all aboutvattacking units tgat cant fight back. Cruiser on subs or air units. Batleships. Subs. If youre taking damage with them youve fucked up.
Grit needs a new power called hominy harmony and is allowed to use it every turn and has a cool animation of him aiming his revolver and allows rocket assisted artillery to cover a wide range at lower accuracy, not like I'm a fan or anything :P OPAF is the name of the move XD but really your changes would be totally playable to this old player
I like all but eagles one I think light strike -30% def should not effect is infantry and mech instead they should gain +10% Def as they hunker down to defend. It never sat right with me that his troops who gain nothing from his power get obliterated on the counter attack. The reason they still lose 20% firepower is to show they so focused on trying to hunker down they are not organized enough to fight back properly