I was just about to start a thread on this. I'll just cut paste what I had written and then elaborate.
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Howdy folks,
With the next release looming it’s time to think about after release balance playtesting. One of the key issues I’m going to be looking at this time around is GPS. Due to the nature of the problem, this merits its own thread.
GPS is the most glaring balance issue remaining between factions. Not only does it give allies an incredible advantage when active, it slows the game down to a crawl. We call it map hacks for a reason. When you can see the position of every unit your opponent has, you can react to any attack long before they commit to it. This turns games into protracted artillery duels.
Allied vs Soviet games with GPS typically force the Soviet player to turtle in between each Iron Curtain cooldown. With IC they must attack and hope to do more damage than the allied player did in the last two minutes. Allies vs Allies is much worse, with each player slowly positioning and re-positioning units to prevent any attack. The game ends when one player’s artillery finally bleeds the other dry.
The proposal I have made before is to remove infantry and aircraft from GPS vision, as well as remove the ability of units to auto-target gps-dots under the fog of war. I only know how to make my first idea work, which is why gpsdot will be removed from infantry and aircraft in my playtest with no other changes to GPS.
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Was going to write more and post but you beat me to the punch
One of the key things to look at here is technical feasibility. The main reason I am testing removing the dots is because it is one of the few changes to GPS I know how to make. If anyone knows another .yaml changes that can be done, let me know.
Anyhow, the main reason I'm leaving vehicles is for synergy with the chronosphere. That said knowing vehicle locations is a big deal so we may be taking that out after some testing.
I'll be dropping some playtest maps after release. I fully intend to make a balance pr out of this, so if you have an opinion on RA balance, you'll want to take part and give feedback.
"Do not trust the balance tzars (Smitty, Orb). They are making the changes either for the wrong reasons, for no reason at all, or just because they can and it makes them feel good." - Alex Jones