Read-only sections on the forum
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I firmly disagree. Just proposing a change without providing some insight as to why you change it means the insight is lost in my opinion. Especially when time passes by. I don't know how to derive their train of thought from these changes:
Yes - of course there are other members that can tell you why it happened. But why would you burden people with the same questions, over and over again? With the same discussions, over and over again? Having some reference with even the tiniest trace of the reasoning of the change allows someone to simply reference to the trace.
I'm not entirely sure what you are referring to in your second paragraph - I'm not promoting people to join the balance team. I'm promoting the idea that the insights that are made by better players and / or players with more time on their hands would be interesting for the community as a whole to be able to read - considering that they found them worthy enough to change the balance. I'm not asking them to write a book, I'm just asking them why they thought the scout needs to cost a tad more.
As an example: a sentence or two can be sufficient and will take up less time than what they are writing right now (https://github.com/FAForever/fa/pull/3192) which is a duplicate of the change log of GitHub - written in their own format.
Yes - there will be people that will ignore them from some perspective. But isn't that a minority, people that can be counted on one hand?
Without dragging Brutus into this discussion, I'd like to take his blogs and announcements about changes as an example:
- https://forum.faforever.com/topic/1/welcome-to-the-new-faforever-forum/2
- https://forum.faforever.com/category/3/blogs
They provide insight to the changes and are interesting to read. Given: I may have a bias because I tend to think myself to be a developer.
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The insights are right here: https://content.faforever.com/patchnotes/
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Well - I wasn't aware of that
. That is exactly what I think there should be. How would you navigate towards that page? Because I'm quite confident that I've never seen it before. -
Type "FAF patchnotes" into Google, or your favorite search engine.
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Right - I understand - but how to do it without my favorite search engine. Because I tried to find these on the pages, and all I found at some point was the changes described in-game.
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I don't think there is any way to find them besides that, FAF is a mess.
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@ThomasHiatt Thank you for joining in, I was completely unaware of that part of the website.
I still think that the discussion of the balance team should be more public, but I won't drag on the discussion. I've said what I wanted to say.
Is it an idea to make a (sticky) post per patch in the balance suggestions forum (or somewhere that makes sense so that they can be found) that only includes the introduction and then a link with the rest of the changes? As an example:
The post has that introduction copy-pasted, and then references the patch for more details. They'll remain at the top due to the stickiness. Lock them after creating so that they do not encourage a discussion (in that topic). With that, the information is present where it matters. Edit: I'm willing to do this myself, just need to know if people agree and if someone can lock the topics afterwards.
Props to whoever made this - it looks great.
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Just promote that page more aggressively with every update somewhere (news, FAF client popup)
Whoever is responsible for that writing and images of the page is doing a great job. I love to read through those changes.
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There’s like 1-2 balance patches a year. Promoting it aggressively during patches won’t make it any more known. Particularly since it’s linked to in every patch release thread which is made every patch.
Someone could pin it in balance forums I guess.
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Would this help? https://github.com/FAForever/fa/pull/3210
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@speed2 Yes! it would help. Not all those patches are balance patches however - some are dev. I like the pin / sticky idea in the balance section of the forums too - just to make sure that it can be found where it is relevant.
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If the balance team isn't communicating things to the community, it probably isn't because they don't like using the forums. Its probably because for whatever reason they don't want to communicate things to the community.
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I wonder why..
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the patchnotes are linked in every patch news, i guess it can also be pinned in balance subforum (there was a pin in old forum : https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=12926).
As for speed button, i guess it should state that it is balance patchnote, so people don't mess thing up with game patch.I don't have a specific feeling about this read-only forum. It looks like similar to a thread i used to do on old forum : https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=17095 (well i guess it was more about promotion)
I think other member of balance team aren't thrilled by this idea. I notified the thread to jagged, he might give an official answer.
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I mean, the logic I feel being semi-advocated is one I hear in tcg and 40k community, at some stage or another
“balance/bans/points changes speak for themselves for player who understand the game”
Except most players at my elo espacially don’t understand the game. They barely get why spend 900 Mass = 20 Less tanks. I could tell you
“modern 40k moved to progressive start of round scoring at from progressive end of round scoring”, for balance reasons.
I am almost certain most folks here wouldn’t get how that is massively nauanced difference even if they play 40k. Unless they play at a certain level of play. Many would feel cheated sense the former style felt balanced to them and now there armies are much much worse.
A post Jip describing would
“9th Edition 40k has moved full from what edition started doing is a progressive switch to Start of Round from End of Round scoring.This change has occured due to endgame mass bumrushing objectives resulting in certain armies with fast movement able to seize this advantage late game. Furthermore it skew army construction to favor very killy and very mobile that did not have ability to hold positions.
Etc”
You can even shorten the point “End of Turn/Round scoring promote kill all based gameplay not promoting playing the board with armies meant to seize and HOLD positions.”
The latter is what Jip is saying and talking about. And explaining the purpose behind changes sometimes make those who don’t understand how you go to a point, comprehend why.
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You really should proofread your posts. I don't understand anything
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Tl;dr
Most players are dumb and don’t see “obvious” reasons why something was changed. So having a comment elaborating or an article even explaining why x was changed is worth considering. -
But the patchnotes that Thomas mentioned are already doing this. So this is solved?
I don't even understand why this thread is still continuing. -
I think Jip asking is easier for access or having a place on the forum where they are conveniently located.
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The current problem is that the only response you can get from balance team is if you go and ask them directly and then if you are lucky (I am not) you may get a response. The patchnotes are great but they are released AFTER the changes are made. The only way to track upcoming balance changes is to look at Github (which I recommend) or when the changes are already merged to faf beta you can see them and test them there. There is a lack of possibilities to discuss and influence or shape some of the changes that are happening. You may say that if I wanna do that I should just join the balance team (which I am considering) but I still feel like there is a lack of medium for high rated players to voice their opinions on the topic of balance where balance team will actually READ them and respond and explain why some changes were made.
I understand why the current balance section is not used - everyone just keeps spamming it, many of those people having no clue about gameplay and balance so I think that there is really a need for such medium to exist. Not sure what format it should have exactly, should it be on discord with Slow mode enabled? A forum thread like suggested where you can only post if given permission or if you are part of the balance team ofc.
Nonetheless I expressed my concerns about some of the changes, a few more made it in in the meanwhile on Git and there is another big question hanging around, Is this balance patch gonna hit before the LOTS (Terrible idea in my opinion) or after?
So many question yet there is no way to get a response unless I go and bother Petric (already did, no response) and Jagged with PM's.
