Lets say you have an issue and you need to hire an expert to help you solve this issue. Are you going to hire the guy with the credentials and experience to fix it or the guy who just started out?
No one is saying that opinion is discredited, but players with skill, experience and the credentials typically have a heavier weighted opinion due to the attributes I stated above.
I have pretty much zero interest in reading balance discussions nowadays, the meta has been stale for like six months and everybody knows what the OP and UP stuff is and what the general problems with the game are.
Only low rank players are still talking about it or making 25 pages topic like "SUPER FACTION OVERHAUL REDUX!!11".
High level players absolutely know the ins and outs of the game better than lower level players.
However, I am much more annoyed by people purposefully warping discussion due to faction blindness than I am by the inexperienced people thinking they know everything. The latter group has some excuse; the former, none.
You guys are right in saying that the better players should be listened to more. My gripe is that that's exactly what I am trying to do. I make a thread, ask players what they think and act accordingly (such as with my T-70 fix) and ask them to playtest or even just give their opinion, and what I got in that thread was pure flaming.
"SUPER FACTION OVERHAUL REDUX" doesn't mean I think I know better than anyone else, it means I have a basic concept of how the faction should have been to maximize its options while remaining balanced, and ironing out kinks of which is up to people who want to contribute to it. I don't play 1v1 and T-70 is a nonfactor in 2v2 so I assumed it would not be a problem. Evidently I was wrong but saying that like Cruzz did back in that thread was fine, I saw my mistake. What's not fine is all the flaming I got for it.
It's also just rude to say that I learned absolutely nothing about my faction..
But kamk has a point in saying that people more often than not point out balance issues that are really just issues with them. However, sometimes there is a basis in that, being that they simply perform better with other factions. I personally blow with USF and I would never make a thread suggesting a buff to anything they have and expect to be taken seriously, but it should mean something that a larger variety of tactics work better for me when playing one side as opposed to another which I have played for longer, like Soviets. I simply have much more fun with Ostheer and OKW than I do as Soviets and far less frustration, so can you really say that claims are baseless?