Relic: June 23rd Update: About Balance

Guys, Just stop worrying about it. Just go with the worst, than anything can become more positive..

We know Relic has the brain and the guts to deliver patches once every 6 months, so lets say they release one in 6 months, well fine, so be it. In the meanwhile, we can play the great mods that are comming out now, soon or are already fully operational.

We can also just stop playing Axis for 2 weeks and see the patch rolled out even quicker. We as a consumer have more power than they do. If you want the patch that badly, just stop playing Axis for 2 maybe even 3 weeks, no one will find a game, Relic must act then.

Except mods, as well as custom games in generals are time fillers.

Real stuff happens on automatch and if that will get neglected and die, player numbers will start to diminish.

Relic have put themselves on a race track.
On one side, we have relic and their sluggish patching schedule(anyone else remembers the "1 patch per month" statement from the 18 months ago?) and on another, players patience that runs extremely thin right now.

If 100% of coh2 population was smoking weed, then your "solution" to just wait however long it takes would be viable, but players are people, not statistics, if the game can't sustain the fun and interesting gameplay, players will find a new one, even the most dedicated ones.

I mean, for fuck sake, I am pessimistic right now.
And I have considered myself as a fanboy of relic as a company.
But even I can see that this relationship might not have a bright future and I can't bed promises of "it'll all be well".

At this time, even a Saint Walker himself would have problems to rise community mood.

Summed up: Balance is hard; changes are comming.

It is always the same. What they say is not wrong in itself, but when you look at past history and the current state of the game and community it just does nothing good to the people reading it.

-We need to test things first: This always serves as an excuse, like with the Community maps being added to automatch. Many months later some maps get added and they are completely broken so that on one map Americans cannot even call in vehicles because they get blocked in the entrance. So they waited months because of testing and then it turns out they apparently have not tested anything properly in all that time, and that the community is serving as the testers in the end anyway.

-We don't know how some changes will affect balance yet: Maybe, but the problem is that the current state of the game is neither very balanced or fun for a lot of players (which Relic must agree with, otherwise they would not plan these big changes). Will releasing a massive patch with all the changes balance the game perfectly now? Probably not. Will it be worse than right now? Maybe yes, maybe not, probably not significantly worse than now though. On the other hand it will be at least more fun to play again, with different things to try out, and keep the community interested and give it a feeling that things are in the movement again. If some things prove to be too broken they can be reverted or finetuned afterwards again. A poorly balanced, stagnating game is even worse than a poorly balanced, but alive game.

-There is no time plan mentioned when the next changes come. With the current rate of patches we get, we might not get all these changes before christmas even. During this time the game will lose players slowly again, and it will be even harder to bring them back and excited again once they are already gone.

I understand their concern, like Katitof. I agree with him.
However, fun should always come before balance if a given situation makes them oppose. Therefore, putting "balance related data" ahead of the "overwhelmingly positive" response from testers is far more reckless.

You want to maximise "Fun" you configure the game for Axis-Only Comp-Stompers and/or 4v4 players, both of whom are groups of people the 1v1 Herrenvolk tell us must suck it because of the all-important competitive balance

It means we care enough to stick around, but are pissed with lack of changes and postponing really important changes enough to not play anymore.

It's like stalking an ex-GF.


All it shows is that people need to get over it and move on with their lives

It's like stalking an ex-GF.


All it shows is that people need to get over it and move on with their lives

More like Russia vs the rest of the world.
Show Spoiler

More like Russia vs the rest of the world.
Show Spoiler

He's right. People need to chill out about this.

If you really don't want to play until all the new patch changes are implemented then that's what you should do. I understand the concerns and love for the game and coming back and all- cant argue with that...

Game isn't getting worse... (I hope LoL!)

This is just comedy at this point. Without giving us even the vaguest of time-frames how are we supposed to he hopeful?

Except mods, as well as custom games in generals are time fillers.

Real stuff happens on automatch and if that will get neglected and die, player numbers will start to diminish.

Relic have put themselves on a race track.
On one side, we have relic and their sluggish patching schedule(anyone else remembers the "1 patch per month" statement from the 18 months ago?) and on another, players patience that runs extremely thin right now.

If 100% of coh2 population was smoking weed, then your "solution" to just wait however long it takes would be viable, but players are people, not statistics, if the game can't sustain the fun and interesting gameplay, players will find a new one, even the most dedicated ones.

I mean, for fuck sake, I am pessimistic right now.
And I have considered myself as a fanboy of relic as a company.
But even I can see that this relationship might not have a bright future and I can't bed promises of "it'll all be well".

At this time, even a Saint Walker himself would have problems to rise community mood.

And I have considered myself as a fanboy of relic as a company.

Agreed, beyond doubt.

if the game can't sustain the fun and interesting gameplay, players will find a new one, even the most dedicated ones.

Agreed

Real stuff happens on automatch and if that will get neglected and die, player numbers will start to diminish.

What exactly is this 'Real stuff'? You mean meta warriors with exploits of doom?

I'm tired of all this acting like balancing a game would be rocket sience. A team of a few game developers should be able to do it in one day, then testing a week or let it be a month and that's it.
What shall companies do that face actual challenges? If they derped like relic, holy fu*king shit.

Relic cant decide what they do. One day they release patches which completely destroy balance and left game in unplayable state for mounts (industry days is a good example), other day they are too scared to release actually good and hard-tested changes which either or not destroy balance would be most welcomed just because they refresh gameplay and shake meta so much.

Call-ins were problem, so with heavy tanks limit guard motor with t34-85 spam would be one and only useful commander (same goes for elite rifles with flamethrower and e8 buff, same goes for ta, although least of all).

Blobs were problem, so Relic nerfed katys in same patch, and again, did nothing to buff blob counters (primary artillery) past hmgs.

Relic just operates on next level of loogic, nobody can understand them.

Balancing games may be hard, but not even close to how hard Relic making it look.

When you 'leave the scene' but still come back to post...

OT I get what Relic are saying but it would be nice if they could give us some timeframe on when the rest of this is going to be rolled out (I.e no soon bs). A mass boycott f online play would be nice to see if it would force their hand a little, alas this is the internet though I guess..

Oh yeah, I left the scene matey. No COH2 on my PC, no organizing no nothing. That's called leaving a scene.
I'd like to check from time to time , but it seems that that isn't allowed ?

I can't embed a video with a fixed starting point, so forward to 1.21 or so

I can't embed a video with a fixed starting point, so forward to 1.21 or so

Awesome! If it was possible to just have the video from 1.21 onward, then every "I'm leaving" thread should be immediately closed with the only reply being that video.

What we need is an approximate timeframe for the real changes.Soon means little given the track record.I had heard months ago there will be warspoils changes 'soon'.How soon is soon in this case?

TBH I WOULD RATHER HAVE MORE SHITTY PATCHES(EVEN THOUGH EVERYTHING RELIC WAS SUPPOSED TO RELEASE[BUT DIDN'T] HAD BEEN ALREADY CONFIRMED BALANCE/FUN WISE) THEN HAVING TO WAIT 6 MORE MONTHS TO GET EVERYTHING I WANT.

Relic doesn't understand that releasing out-of-context patch changes (which have not being tested on their own, only in the context of Alpha) is just as bad as releasing completely untested changes (ahem, PTRS buff on Guards, which came out of nowhere).

@dbmb well, you can't really say PTRS buff came out of nowhere.
It was a horrible, POS weapon and you didn't even had any control over getting it, you was forced to get it and cried tears of joy when it dropped.
There was one of 2 ways to change it, make it effective against infantry or double its penetration.
Unless you mean current drop rate reduction, which is rather self explanatory.

Everything else you've written though, +1.

Relic doesn't understand that releasing out-of-context patch changes (which have not being tested on their own, only in the context of Alpha) is just as bad as releasing completely untested changes (ahem, PTRS buff on Guards, which came out of nowhere).

Relic loves to play that mysterious game of, "what random thing shall we add on the patch".

Previous changelog of #JustRandomRelicDecisions:

Decreasing long range dmg of Irregular/Partysan lmgs
Making Dp-28s on Irregulars a Downgrade
Increasing cost of Irregulars for no reason.
Forcing Ostruppen to become shitstruppen
Decreasing reload time on t-34/76 by 1 second since nobody was complaining
Nerfing PPsH into a relatively worthless state for the great cost of 40 munis!
Removing merge for conscripts and Partysans(Ninja change)
Turning the Sturmovik into a worthless piece of **** for 180 munis
Turning the KV-2 into a worthless piece of **** for 630 mp and 230 Fuel
Turning the Panzerwerfer into a uneffective artillery unit
Giving us extra warspoil options with nothing to do(except for bulletins)