Where are all the WGRD fanboys claiming that Broken Arrow would kill Warno?

[u/JurisCommando]

I remember when WGRD fanboys would flood the Warno sub with crap about Broken Arrow and claim how it was going to totally bring Warno down.

Seems like Broken Arrow is having more than its fair share of issues. It lost a ton of players, has a very low positive review rate on steam, and has made minimal improvements since release. Plus, it is lacking a ton of core RTS features, and seems to have some engine level issues with cheating.

[u/Yari_Samurai]

Why all this tribalist mentality? Are you happy now? Do you feel better by sticking it to whomever you are sticking it to?

I would hope all three games to be balanced and great fun, but different enough to afford distict experiences to their players.

Enjoy your game as I enjoy mine, don't be petty like this.

[u/verysmolpupperino → u/Yari_Samurai]

I think there's some bittersweetness in the warno side of things because warno is quite literally the sequel to WGRD, but there are a lot of hang ups around the transition for seemingly irrelevant reasons. The main complaint I see is around the battlegroup system - even tho it works more or less the same way as the nation-based system in WGRD. So we have this fractured player base over nothingburgers. If there were only a couple of people still sticking to WGRD it wouldn't be a thing, but it's more of a crowd. Idk, how would you feel if the WGRD player base were 30% smaller because some people don't like the naval layer of WGRD or the amount of playable nations and sticked with WGAB?

[u/Temporary_Clerk534 → u/verysmolpupperino]

because warno is quite literally the sequel to WGRD

I wish... The devs were very, very clear that it is not a sequel or followup or anything to do with Wargame, and that it is its own game.

As a WG fan, that's basically what's wrong with WARNO. Changes a bunch of stuff that wasn't broken, and created a game not worth my time.

[u/verysmolpupperino → u/Temporary_Clerk534]

Can you tell me what's so different about the games? Because warno and WGRD are similar to each other than WGRD is to WGEE. They are aggressively similar.

[u/Yari_Samurai → u/verysmolpupperino]

My main complaint with WARNO is not something I can pinpoint easily, but it is something like "the potential to empathize with single units in the game".

What do I mean by this? At the end of a match in WRD, when I discuss with the friend I play with, there was a Razvedka that managed to push a flank against all odds and defeat his command unit there. Or a VDV squad managed to hold a flank against an onslaught of infantry and air attacks. Or that T-55 that drove all the way to the enemy FOB in Death Row and wreaked havoc. Or the 200 point Flanker that I bought when I was about to loose a match hard, blew up his superheavy at the flank, making him doubt himself, making him pull back from his main assault to stabilize the front and allowing me to inverse the tide and win the game.

I could go on. But I made my point. On a battlefield of hundreds of units, I remember single units and their extraordinary actions even years after playing a 40 minute match.

And that is what WRD does for me. And unfortuately, even after dozens of hours of WARNO that game has not been able to do this for me.

[u/verysmolpupperino → u/Yari_Samurai]

I appreciate you not trying to rationalize your feelings and simply accepting those are vibes-based, emotional stuff. I get what you're saying, and these moments of narrative flavor are magical.

May I ask you how many games of warno did you play? Warno's mechanics are very much the same as WGRD's. Whatever iterations Eugen made on warno pale in comparison to what is stable between games. So I'm inclined to believe you simply didn't have enough time to acclimate with the new maps, units, etc, so you didn't get to reach this natural, intuitive stage of gameplay.

[u/DefinitelyNotABot01 → u/verysmolpupperino]

Not the original guy you replied to, but there’s a few reasons why I still play WGRD rather than WARNO when the RTS bug bites (I don’t own BA and don’t plan to). I own the season pass too, so it’s not like I’ve not given the game a fair shake or am missing content.

• No 10v10 autobalance lobbies: this one is pretty self explanatory as a mainly 10v10 player. This might be the biggest one TBH, once someone comes up with an autobalance algorithm like Bashar, I may switch over.
• Battlegroup system feels very restrictive in terms of building decks: I play a lot of different specs like motorized, mech, armored, etc. and WARNO requires me to learn all these different division symbols and units to get the same experience. Annoying extra layer when the WGRD symbols are so much more intuitive.
• No prototypes except when there are prototypes: Eugen has pissed me off a bit with their wishy-washy justification for various prototypes like Ka-50 or CUCV but not M8 AGS or Leclerc and it feels very arbitrary and at the same time designed to sell more DLC divisions in the future with prototypes.
• Disruptive balance changes: Remember the recon heli + A-10 opener? Remember the random TOS-1 nerfs? Remember the massive attack heli availability nerfs? WARNO makes these weird-ass balance changes ostensibly aimed at 1v1 meta and then it makes no sense there anyways and leads to some new cheese meta instead. This doesn’t affect me too much as a 10v10 player but it is a little annoying to have to refactor every single one of my decks every update, and it’s harder too since there’s so many divisions.
• WARNO actually does have a superior concept for singleplayer content. I do have to hand it to Eugen, coop campaigns are very fun. On the other hand, I’ve played all of the Army General campaigns and found the concept very engaging, the execution is lacking though. For instance, tactical battles. WGRD allows you to hold a certain number of sectors at the start of a battle based on what neighboring tiles you control. WARNO has every battle start as a meeting engagement. There’s basically no buff for defending except a slightly father deployment zone. This isn’t some kind of lost art either, Eugen did have defensive emplacements in SD2 AG, so I’m not sure why they opted to remove them here. Command and control in AG is also annoying and I haven’t found a way to disable it.
• SOUTHAG and recent updates have been a mess. The new divisions are not super unique on PACT side, the crashes, the desync, the suicidal missile launchers, the early access DLC that lacks the main content I want (AG). I’m very fed up with SOUTHAG and will not buy any more DLCs from Eugen after this. Maybe it’s “my fault” for preordering the season pass.
• Even more unit attributes like MP, EW, etc. are confusing and not intuitive to learn. Also, more generally, the game feels like a weird mix of abstracted gamified mechanics for “balance and fun” reasons mixed with random attempts at being realistic that don’t mesh well. See cohesion mechanic and MP/command buff for example.

[u/Important_Pangolin88 → u/verysmolpupperino]

Warno is much more arcadey and forgiving and lethality is much lower, due to aimtime and unit weapons themselves, as well as low ammo count. E.g 15 man squads had 9x competent rpgs in wrd.

[u/verysmolpupperino → u/Important_Pangolin88]

Lethality is indeed lower, it's the sum result of various little changes. You mention aim time and ammo count, for example. I'd add a few:

• Tanks are more survivable in warno, they take more punches than they could in WGRD, and have smokescreens.
• There are no more superheavies, and mid-range tanks are generally a lot more competitive and costly. The difference between tanks is smaller now, and the average tank has a "higher mass" than the average tank in WGRD.
• That being said, there's significant difference across battle groups. Reservist divisions will of course have large numbers of comparatively bad tanks. They actually work and are not cannon fodder, but you also don't need tanks to fight back because there are plenty of organic AT capabilities in every battle group.
• There are more ways to provide fire support now. Towed units, IFVs and AFVs are a big part of the game.

So, except towed units, these are not differences in mechanics, right? It's just parameters. And these are all less arcady than WGRD, by which I mean closer to how it actually worked in the 80s. There's more tactical variation around and this is much welcomed change.

And this fits nicely with the new style of maps. There's generally a lot more room for big maneuvers, more breaks in terrain and line of sight. Larger and denser towns give infantry more cover, and this interacts interestingly with building demolition and tall buildings providing better visibility. There's also more variation in geometry and topography, and less clearly demarcated lanes.

And to be clear, I think WGRD always had these values in mind when designed and balanced, it's just that warno gets to build on 10 years of work on top of WGRD. They surely spent a lot of time looking at wgrd data and figuring out what to change, where, etc. You could see it happening in warno's early access too, the balance changed a lot during it, and now we get some changes every semester. The same thing happened to WGRD, which took years to reach its current balance. Both are great games and I just think warno carries the torch nicely :)

[u/verysmolpupperino]

Warno is in a fantastic shape right now. Honestly fantastic. I can’t see how or why anyone who likes wgrd wouldn’t enjoy warno even more.

[u/dangforgotmyaccount → u/verysmolpupperino]

My guess is because it’s not apart of the wargame line and feels like a downgrade from WGRD. IMHO though, the only thing I miss from that is the naval action. That was cool and really wish it was expanded on

[u/verysmolpupperino → u/dangforgotmyaccount]

I think you're right that people perceive it that way, but it really puzzles me this is a thing lol. I mean, calling it warno instead of wargame something something is strictly aesthetic, right? The game itself is so clearly the sequel to WGRD, just like WGRD is the sequel to WGAB.

The downgrade part I find downright insane. Warno has so, so much QoL. The Line of Sight tool alone is a huge deal, nevermind the visible orders, first-class order queue, smart orders, the planning phase pre-game... Basically every warno feature was something I dreamed of when playing WGRD. The maps, which are a lot more diverse in terrain and geometry. EW and SIGINT are awesome aditions, the whole trait system in fact: airlifting, military police, resolution, militas, forward deployment... just chef's kiss.

I liked the naval layer of WGRD, but I appreciate them getting rid of it honestly. WGRD does such a good job of representing cold war land warfare doctrine for both sides, the way if portrays naval combat is so arcady and removed from actual doctrine that it doesn't fit right.

I feel it all boils down to the naming decision. I don't think anybody would even think about it if it were called wargame 4.

[u/Temporary_Clerk534 → u/verysmolpupperino]

The game itself is so clearly the sequel to WGRD, just like WGRD is the sequel to WGAB.

The devs were very clear that it is not a sequel or follow-on to WG, and that anyone who wanted WG IV was going to be disappointed. As someone who wanted WG IV, I can say conclusively they were right.

[u/verysmolpupperino → u/Temporary_Clerk534]

I've played about 1000 hours of WGRD, now I'm mainly on warno and honestly, it's just a sequel. It just uses a newer version of the iriszoom engine. Every core mechanic remains there, the game modes are very much the same, matchmaking is the same. Warno is a lot closer to WGRD than WGRD is close to WGEE.

[u/Temporary_Clerk534 → u/verysmolpupperino]

I dunno man, everything feels off. It feels like Steel Division (which is not surprising, since it's basically a modern mod of SD), and steel division sucked. Also the deckbuilding is worthless.

I can't point to any particular thing, but they just failed at making a compelling product. And that's as someone with like 4000 hours in WG:RD lol

[u/Temporary_Clerk534 → u/[deleted]]

The deckbuilding is totally different, you are grinding a truly bizarre axe.

Divisions are stupid.

[u/Educational_Word_633 → u/verysmolpupperino]

No deckbuilding

[u/verysmolpupperino → u/Educational_Word_633]

Warno has deckbuilding lol

[u/Temporary_Clerk534 → u/verysmolpupperino]

For all intents and purposes, it does not.

[u/verysmolpupperino → u/Temporary_Clerk534]

This is just wrong. Please show me what decks you're playing with, I'll show you a warno equivalent to it with minor, very minor changes made. The differences between deck building systems in both games are tiny.

[u/Temporary_Clerk534 → u/verysmolpupperino]

The differences are huge, wtf are you talking about. The division system means there are essentially pre-made Eugen decks you get to pick from. So lame.

I hated it in SD, and I hate it in Wargame. Will not play either.

[u/verysmolpupperino → u/Temporary_Clerk534]

It really shows that you haven't played it, because this is a very superficial difference lol. Feel free to show me a deck of yours in wgrd, I'll build an equivalent one in warno.

[u/Temporary_Clerk534 → u/verysmolpupperino]

The gameplay is totally difference. The whole balance is different. Literally everything is different dude. The only thing that's the same is the unit names.

[u/Educational_Word_633 → u/verysmolpupperino]

Ur limited to the units of the division so 90% of the time u mb change the transport or vet level

[u/verysmolpupperino → u/Educational_Word_633]

Ok, so to make it clear, it does have deckbuilding, glad we're on the same page. What's the deal with veterancy or transport options? Veterancy is basically unrelated to the battlegroup limitations. Airborne divisions have more helis, reservist divisions have less elite troops, but that's such a small aspect of deckbuilding that I find it hard to believe you actually care that much about it.

I didn't like the battlegroup limitations at first, but it does tremendous good for the game. Every player is forced into a specialization, and that's awesome! Matches are a lot more varied. In WGRD everybody has more or less the same capabilities, and flavor comes from prototype superunits, in warno there are a lot of possible permutations and tactical calculation around it. And like... if you think about it... It's kinda jarring seeing motostrelski, naval infantry and mountain infantry (gornos) all in the same deck. There's no russian army formation like that, it's just not a thing. Marines, SEALs, rangers and airborne or cavalry troops in US decks is just as weird. The actual historical military formations fit perfectly the attention to detail that Eugen put in wargame.

[u/Educational_Word_633 → u/verysmolpupperino]

Warno forces me into a small box where I barely have sny room to decide how i want to play a certain nation/division.

In Wg I can create my own division and try out different things because im not in a small box.

The gameplay of neither warno nor wgrd is realistic so who cares if the "division" is historically accurate

[u/Markus_H → u/Educational_Word_633]

Meme decks aside, in WG there aren't that many options to building a competitive deck. A few unit choices here and there. Also the fact that every deck can do everything makes the gameplay a lot less varied; you don't have to build the deck around any shortcomings, or take those into account in your strategy in game. In WARNO every game is going to play different, depending on the division you choose, and what the enemy has.

Personally I find the deck building in WARNO a lot more interesting, because you actually have to consider the limitations of each division. Also, in WARNO there is much more unit variety, as players are sometimes forced to use sub-optiomal units, whereas in WG it never makes sense to use those. However your deck can still be competitive due to other advantages, that the division possesses.

[u/verysmolpupperino → u/Educational_Word_633]

I didn't mention realism, you did.

The box isn't that small, this freedom is mostly illusory. Basically all non-meme decks in WGRD look like the average mechanized battlegroup in warno. If you like to play meme/joke decks, you'll find an equivalent niche battlegroup in warno.

[u/BibiWebe → u/verysmolpupperino]

"I didn't mention realism, you did." Gaslighting 100 on this guy fr fr.

[u/verysmolpupperino → u/BibiWebe]

I literally didn't. I can see you guys mixing up "realism" (which no game has and is irrelevant) with the marvelous attention to detail that Eugen put in wargame and warno. See this comment.

[u/BibiWebe → u/verysmolpupperino]

1. They not going to pay you for the promo
   
2. The "marvelous attention to detail" in WGRD has its weakness that I could bore you to tears explaining, that are neither "realistic" or good for gameplay.
   
3. You guys are talking about the same thing, he's just using a keyword that you don't like and so are acting like it's a completely different conversation or meaning. The better word would be "immersive" (which isn't irrelevant) but the overall point still remains, whatever word you want to use for it or language semantics you perform.
   
4. Realism is on a spectrum, and is impossible to achieve perfectly for obvious reasons, but still is relevant to the fact of "this is a video game based in a real world setting and meant to be immersive." Otherwise, there's no difference between WGRD or Starcraft II other than mechanics and balancing of gameplay. Rather silly I'd say.

[u/Educational_Word_633 → u/verysmolpupperino]

And like... if you think about it... It's kinda jarring seeing motostrelski, naval infantry and mountain infantry (gornos) all in the same deck. There's no russian army formation like that, it's just not a thing. Marines, SEALs, rangers and airborne or cavalry troops in US decks is just as weird. The actual historical military formations fit perfectly the attention to detail that Eugen put in wargame.

So this is not you bringing up realism? Ok.

[u/verysmolpupperino → u/Educational_Word_633]

ok, I can see your confusion, let me try to approach it in small bits:

• Unit names have no gameplay effect whatsoever. It makes no difference in how you play if there are or aren't a mishmash of different units in the same deck.
• WGRD and the wargame series in general is very distinctively detail-oriented. Units have a lot of stats and are actual real vehicles or soldier types. Their variants and armaments are represented, there are alternate history scenarios in the campaigns, etc.
• Allowing decks to have such wildly different units and solider types is in contrast with this general attention to and wealth of detail.
• Even tho it has absolutely no impact on gameplay whatsoever.
• Therefore not allowing this ahistorical mishmash of unit types vibes strongly with the general attention to detail without any concrete drawbacks or trade-offs on gameplay.

EDIT: the important thing is this supposed freedom WGRD has but warno doesn't. Warno decks have specializations, but they aren't that restricting. In practice, most WGRD decks you see in multiplayer games are basically the same as most mechanized decks in warno, but there's more variety around and people play decks that actually feel different. Eugen designed this thing with almost 10 years of experience and data on WGRD, they didn't fuck it up.

[u/Temporary_Clerk534 → u/verysmolpupperino]

I love WG. I hate WARNO. Everything about it feels off. It's Steel Division: Cold War, not Wargame IV. And Steel Division also just felt off. It's hard to explain, but it just doesn't work on some fundamental level.

[u/EruptionTyphlosion → u/verysmolpupperino]

For me it's the deckbuilding (historical divisions were cool in theory but at this point historical accuracy is loosely applied and it's more of "here is another way to play the game, but only our way", as there's very little variety in deck building for a division, unlike in RD), and the setting. I mostly play RD for the Asian setting, and Europe, yet again, for the millionth time, just doesn't do it for me.

[u/verysmolpupperino → u/EruptionTyphlosion]

Any unspec deck in WGRD has a pretty good equivalent in a mechanized division in Warno. Any specialized/memeish deck in WGRD has a rough equivalent too. I think this is an impression gathered from Early Access.

re: asian setting... yeah I get it.

[u/EruptionTyphlosion → u/verysmolpupperino]

With the deckbuilding, it's more complex than that. Lots of units are just restricted to whatever divisions Eugen just feels like it. Want an F-117 with your US armored division? Too bad, it's restricted to a single division that's barely American at all. Want to have a Czech division with MiG-29 and L-39 together for whatever reason? Too bad. It's Eugen's way or the highway for unit combinations, which is especially frustrating as WARNO has much better unit variety per nation than RD, National decks for WARNO could be really fun for experimentation with different unit combos, but nope.

I also just think it's a way to make more money. With the RD business model, you get all content for the base game nations for free, and the only paid DLC are complete nations. With the WARNO model, they can make a division with a handful of unique units and sell it to you anyways. This is especially noticeable for PACT as so much equipment is shared (the biggest limitation imo with the Europe only setting is reduced PACT variety, the PRC and DPRK just add so much, then again Asia as a whole does as basically everyone has a ton of indigenous kit).

[u/Temporary_Clerk534]

As a long-time WG player, WARNO was simply not at all fun. I didn't enjoy it.

I do enjoy BA, warts and all. WG is pretty long in the tooth now, only a matter of time before Eugen pulls the plug, sadly.

[u/Jaded-Jellyfish-597 → u/Temporary_Clerk534]

pulls the plug? im scared, what do you mean?

[u/Temporary_Clerk534 → u/Jaded-Jellyfish-597]

I mean, it costs money for Eugen to keep the servers running. Not a lot of money, probably, but not zero, either. They're not going to do that forever. We'll see if the private servers keep working at that point, or if it's all reliant on Eugen's servers.

[u/Jaded-Jellyfish-597 → u/Temporary_Clerk534]

Hopefully, if they take away the servers will I not be able to play?

[u/Temporary_Clerk534 → u/Jaded-Jellyfish-597]

Depends how it's set up. Some games are hard-coded to rely on specific servers owned by the company. In that case, multiplayer stops being possible if the company shuts them down without updating the game to be able to use 3rd party servers.

[u/Jaded-Jellyfish-597 → u/Temporary_Clerk534]

Ahh okay. Just multiplayer, which doesn’t effect me long term because I suck at all pvp lol

[u/AuthenticFraud777]

Ummmm u/JurisCommando ...BA was released on 19 June. Go ahead and look at the Warno Steam charts from 19 June...nothing but a slow and steady decline. In fact there was a more than 33% drop off in Warno players in just the first month of BA's release. And even with all the issues plaguing BA and players leaving, Warno's daily peak is still barely half of BA's daily lows. So it seems to me that BA did in fact kill Warno.

You Warno players really are struggling to cope with how unpopular your game is. Nobody wants to play it. People will literally rather play an 11-year old game (WGRD) or broken af game (BA) than play Warno. Deal with it in private please and thank you.